Contested Geographies
Mexican cities are embedded in the country’s complex history and its unique geography, which includes majestic mountain ranges, valleys, deserts, and coastal cities as well as a capital city built on a lake. Although social, economical, and political forces have undeniably influenced the morphology and ecology of cities and regions, often producing conflict and contestation over the control of resources, we proceed from the assumption that geographic landscapes and ecosystems can also produce new social and spatial synergies. With a focus on the constituent elements and boundaries of Mexico’s multiple landscapes and ecologies, the MCI is committed to understanding how urban metabolism is constituted by both the natural and built environment. With a focus on the geographic, climatic, and ecological functions of cities and regions, the MCI introduces the landscape dimension into territorial representations of contemporary urbanization.
-
Thesis: ENTRE FUTUROS: Más allá de las Fronteras y las Cicatrices del Río Bravo / In-Between Futures: Beyond Frontiers and Scars in the Rio Bravo
Miriam Hernández Medina’s (MLA II) Thesis: “Entre futuros” reimagines the fixed border on the Río Bravo between Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, and El Paso, Texas. As the river shifted course, land disputes led to its channelization, leaving, since the 1930s, hundreds of cut-off meanders as “hydroghosts”—scars in both landscape and lived experience. These traces become a…
-
Lo Que Sabe el Barro: From Clay to Fire
This research by MCI Fellow Andrea Martinez traces extraction, craft, labor, and reuse across Oaxaca, Saltillo, and Mexico City. Rather than locating rupture between artisanal and industrial practice, it proposes a material continuum, a framework for understanding how ancestral knowledge is not lost but translated through landscapes, labor, and economies.
-
Clay as Living Archive
What can a planner learn from a pot? MCI Fellow Lys Otárola (MUP ’26) presents her 2025 research arguing that the pottery practice of Oaxaca’s red clay communities constitutes a living archive of design intelligence, a system in which social infrastructure, embodied knowledge, communal governance, and ecological reciprocity are not separate concerns but a single,…
-
De la Porqueria al Público / From Pigsty to Publics
MCI ’25 Summer Fellows Gemrisha Anantham and Miriam Hernandez Medina’s research investigates the contamination of the Yucatán Peninsula’s karst aquifer by the region’s pork industry, a project that shifted in direction after repeated access to pig farms, from small operations to major producers like Kekén, was denied due to biosecurity protocols and producer wariness stemming from recent…
-
The Soft Infrastructure: How Textiles Define Mexico’s Spatial Memory and Identity
MCI ’25 Summer Fellows Savalee Jayendra Tikle and Romina Cordova Grados’s research centers on textiles as “soft infrastructure,” the cultural, spatial, and economic systems that quietly shape urban and rural life across Mexico. What began as an inquiry into supply chains and material culture shifted, through fieldwork, toward a deeper focus on the social role…
-
2026 MCI Symposium
2026 MCI Symposium The 2026 Mexican Cities Initiative Symposium took place on Monday, April 13, bringing together research and design addressing Mexico’s urban and environmental futures. The program included opening remarks from DRCLAS Co-Chair and Faculty Committee on Mexico Diane Davis, along with Pablo Pérez Ramos, Laura Janka, and Lorena Bello Gómez, followed by presentations…
-
Hablemos de Mexico
Hablemos de Mexico First Mexican Graduate in Urban Planning from the GSD Returns to Harvard to Reflect on His Experience Challenges of Urban Planning in an Imperfect Democracy: Making What We Plan Happen: 50 Years of Experience from Roque González Roque González will share how his experience at Harvard shaped his professional practice and reflect…
-
Event: MCI Symposium on Urban Futures
2025 MCI Symposium Each year, MCI funds a select number of students to carry out innovative research over the summer to investigate the transformation of Mexico’s complex urban landscapes over the next decades. In this year’s symposium, the 2024 summer fellows shared their findings on evolving urban publics in the face of the climate crisis…
-
Event: Distant Neighbors or Regional Partners? Reflecting on US-Mexico Relations Under Two New Administrations. A Two-Day Symposium
Event: Distant Neighbors or Regional Partners? Reflecting on US-Mexico Relations Under Two New Administrations. A Two-Day Symposium Though the newly elected presidents of Mexico and the United States started their terms mere months apart, both signaled the importance of the border to their agenda. As Mexico’s first female president, Claudia Sheinbaum has voiced longstanding concerns…
-
Event: Delving into Mexican Cities Complexities: A Conversation with Diane Davis
Delving into Mexican Cities Complexities: A Conversation with Diane Davis Mexican cities face enormous urban challenges. From acute water shortages to housing crises and the surge in violence, these demand immediate attention. Join the Harvard University Mexican Association of Students (HUMAS) for the final edition of Exploring Mexico Across Harvard this academic year, for an…