Benito Juárez, Mexico City

The borough is in the north center of Mexico City, just south of the oldest section of the city. It borders the boroughs of Miguel Hidalgo, Cuauhtémoc, Coyoacán, Iztapalapa, Iztacalco and Álvaro Obregón. The borders are formed by two rivers, the La Piedad and the Churubusco, as well as the following streets: Presidente Adolfo López Mateos (Anillo Periférico), 11 de Abril, Avenida Revolución, Puente de la Morena, Viaducto Miguel Alemán, Calzada de Tlalpan, Santa Anita, Atzayacatl, Plutarco Elías Calles and Barranca del Muerto. Many of the names of the rivers, streets and neighborhoods have their origin in the pre Hispanic period. The borough is nearly entirely residential with a socioeconomic level of middle class to upper middle class. The borough is located in the southwest part of the Valley of Mexico. The ground is highly elastic clay which extends down for about fifteen meters. The climate is temperate with an average annual temperature of 17C. Almost all housing and other construction consists of cement, cinderblock or brick, including both walls and roofs. It was a development project conceived in 1947, in an area called Parque de la Lama. However, political opposition stalled the project until the 1960s. At this time, in preparation for the 1968 Olympics, the project moved forward with a total eleven spaces centered on the Hotel de México building. This complex includes the Polyforum, a commercial center, a Public Art school, a handcrafts market, a dinner theatre, garden areas, parking garage and a public transportation hub. Most of the complex would not be completed until the 1980s and the World Trade Center tower was inaugurated in 1994. Today the complex extends over covers an area of 81,000m2. Next door to each other are the Estadio Azul (lit. Blue Stadium) and the Plaza México bullring, also on the west side of the borough. The two were constructed as part of a large project called the Ciudad de los Deportes (Sports City). This project was conceived in the late 1930s to cover what was formerly the San José Hacienda. The complex was to include swimming pools, a baseball field, an indoor jai alai court along with several outdoor ones, boxing and lucha libre rings, theatres, forty tennis courts, restaurants and parking for over two thousand cars. However, the developer went bankrupt with only the bullring near completion. This bullring was begun in 1944 and opened in 1946. It was built to replace the El Toreo ring in the La Roma neighborhood, which dated from 1907. The new facility was built with the express purpose of being the largest in the world. The bullring covers a surface of 1452m2 with a 43-meter diameter. The stands extend up for 35.9 meters and the sand area is twenty meters below street level. There is seating for between 45,000 and 48,000 people. Both the bullring and the Estadio Azul stadium have playing fields which are about twenty meters below street level. This is because both were built over the firing pits for former brick making operations of the hacienda. The stadium was inaugurated in 1947 and has been the home of the Cruz Azul professional soccer team since 1996. The Ciudad de Deportes was planned so that cars can easily enter and exit the area, but over time, housing and other construction has crowded the area around these two landmarks. Since the 1940s, the complex has been owned and operated by the Cosío family. The interior mural work was originally planned for a hotel in Cuernavaca with the theme of the history of humanity. However, the concept grew to more than the hotel could host, and it was later thought to put the work in its own building in Mexico City. This eventually became the Polyforum Siqueiros with the aim of constructing the largest mural in the world, which it remains to this day. The borough is home to a number of houses of notable persons, many of which were part of the intellectual and political life of Mexico. As of 1945, many of these homes, up to those constructed in the late 19th and early 20th century have been declared under a state of conservation. One example of this is the house in which lived Valentín Gómez Farías in what was the village of San Juan Mixcoac. It was constructed in the 17th century and still remains. The borough has a number of public sports facilities and cultural institutions. Sports facilities include the Olympic complex of the Francisco Márquez Pool and Juan de la Barrera Gymnasium, Benito Juárez Sports Complex, Joaquín Capilla Sports Complex, Tirso Hernández Sports Complex and the Gumersindo Romero Sports Complex. The borough has thirteen "casas de cultura" or cultural centers to promote culture through artistic, social, handcrafts events as well as through the staging of plays. The borough also has an established for Desarrollo Social (Social Development), and audio library and a Casa Museo museum. ==History==

Name and symbol The borough was created in 1970 and named after former Mexican president Benito Juárez. The current logo for the borough was adopted in 2001, which is a stylized depiction of the head of President Benito Juárez. The prior logo was a glyph of a serpent which is symbolic of Mixcoac. Archeology The main archeological finds of the area are Aztec/Mexica and include those in Mixcoac, Actipan, Tlacoquemécatl, Xoco, Portales, Ticomán, La Piedad, Ahuehuatlan, Barrio de San Juan, San Pedro de los Pinos Acachinaco (Nativitas) and one at the Metro Zapata station. The pyramid base as San Pedro de los Pinos is located near Mixcoac. It is the only one of its kind left in the borough, discovered in 1916 by Francisco Fernández del Castillo. It was a Mexica temple dedicated to the god Mixcoatl. The site also contains two temazcals as well as two Teotihuacan style sculpted heads. Artifacts have been found in other areas as well such as Xoco and Santa Cruz which include ceramics, stone knives and figurines. In the former village of Atoyac, a pre-Hispanic idol was found during the colonial era and destroyed by the Spanish. The Spanish village was built over a Mesoamerican one, which was dedicated to Tlahuac. The church of Santa Cruz Atoyac was built over the temple. After the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, the first colonial era constructions in the area were evangelical churches built by the Franciscans such as the Church of Santa Cruz in Atoyac in 1564 and the Santo Domingo de Guzmán Church in Mixcoac in 1595. As Lake Texcoco dried, the area became dotted with villages under the hacienda system and had some important roads leading south from Mexico City. The old causeway became the Calzada de Tlalpan and would eventually become the first to be paved. However, these villages were increasingly connected to the main urban center. In the 1870s, trolleys pulled by mules were operating in the area, with the first trolley concession operated by Jorge Luis Hemmerken that connected the Zocalo with San Angel and Mixcoac with Tacubaya. In addition, a number of colonias were created on the east side to meet the demand for middle class housing, resulting in Moderna, Portales, Santa Cruz, Postal, Álamos, Niños Héroes and Independencia. For most of the area's history, population growth was very slow. As late as the 1850s, the municipality of Mixcoac only had 1,500 people. Since 1970, the population has continued to grow but slower, today ranking between fourth and fifth place in population in Mexico City. There is strong economic pressure to convert residential structures and areas into commercial units mostly due to the borough centralized location and accessibility by road. This saturation has led to zoning violations and traffic congestion. The building of massive apartment complexes has caused complaints in the borough as neighbors of these developments claim that crime rates go up. As of 2002, buildings of more than six stories are limited to certain neighborhoods. The development of housing for the middle class and above from the 1920s on has meant that Benito Juárez the gap between rich and poor is less here than in other boroughs such as Miguel Hidalgo. Overall, the borough has the highest socioeconomic indicators in the country, according to the United Nations Development Programme. Its indicators are equivalent to those in Germany, Spain, Italy and New Zealand. The borough ranks highest in personal income, health indicators and education. However, these socioeconomic indicators have not protected the borough from crime problems, especially in the past few decades. There has been a rise in crime rates, especially robbery of banks and cars. The number of crimes has increased and the borough is now ranked fourth in overall crime rates, moving up from fifth place in 2008. Most reported crime consists of robbery at 52.8% followed by assaults at 15.3%. Most of the crime takes place in eleven colonias including Insurgentes Mixcoac, San Pedro de los Pinos, Nápoles, la Unidad Miguel Alemán, Del Valle Norte, Narvarte Poniente, Niños Héroes, Nativitas, Portales Norte, Del Lago and Álamos. ==Demographics==

The borough is currently one of the most densely populated in Mexico City with 16,260 inhabitants per km2, 1.3 times the density of Mexico City as a whole. During work days, another million and a half people come into the borough to work or shop. Most of the population of the borough occurred in the mid 20th century and since then there has been a slight negative growth rate starting at −2.9% in the 1980s to -.03% in 2005, although population increased again from 2010 to 2020. The most populous neighborhoods include Narvarte Oriente, Narvarte Poniente, Del Valle Centro, Portales Norte, Del Valle Norte, El Valle del Sur, Portales Sur and Álamos. The population of the borough is slightly older than the Mexico City average, with the highest overall standard of living. The average age in Benito Juárez is 33 years compared to the city average of 27. Most of the population is in the middle to upper middle class, with about fifty two percent white collar workers and other professionals. According to the 2005 census, 32 percent work in services, 13% as street vendors and 12% as government workers. There are 122,000 residential units with 2.9 occupants on average. 99% are literate, average schooling is 12.6 years with 117,000 people with professional level studies and 16,000 with post-graduate degrees. The borough was ranked with the highest standard of living in the country of Mexico according to the Consejo Nacional de Población. Most of the population of the borough originates from some other part of the country with a small population of indigenous language speakers. As of 2000, 69% of the population had migrated into the borough from other parts of Mexico, especially the states of Hidalgo, Puebla, Veracruz and Oaxaca. As of 2000, there were just under 6,000 people in the borough that spoke an indigenous language, about 1.8 percent of the total, with almost all of the rest being speakers of Spanish. This ranks the borough eighth in Mexico City. Of the indigenous language speakers, just under seventy percent were women and most spoke Nahuatl at 28.5% followed by Zapotec and Otomi at 11.5 and 9.4% each. ==Economy==

The borough's economic activity accounts for 6.2% of the total GDP of Mexico City. The largest contributing sector is construction enterprises, which make up 22.4% of the city's construction. Services, especially professional services, makes up about seventy percent of the borough's GDP, followed by construction at just over 27% and commerce at 17.4%. The borough ranks second after Coyoacán in spaced dedicated to commerce at 274,366 m2. Avenida Insurgentes is the most important commercial area for the borough, with a large concentration of bars and restaurants from fast food to international cuisine at all price ranges. These serve the large number of offices that house architect, lawyers and other professional services. Tourist attractions include the murals of the Polyforum Cultural Siqueiros, the Secretaría de Comunicaciones y Transportes and the Insurgentes Theatre along with the archeological site at Parque Hundido, Estadio Azul and the Plaza de Toros México. Three tourist routes are planned for the borough to bring visitors to the area's museums, historic sites, commercial centers, bars and restaurants via the city's Turibús. Two areas especially targeted are Narvarte and Mixcoac. This follows a recently opened permanent tourist information center established in the borough. Within the borough, about twenty percent of the population live in medium level conditions such as those in the Independencia, Nativitas, Portales Oriente, Residenciales and Villa de Cortés neighborhoods. However, the gap between rich and poor is significantly less than in other areas such as Cuajimalpa and Alvaro Obregon. The living standards for the borough are roughly equivalent to that of the United States. ==Education==

The borough has one of the highest education levels in Mexico City. 98.9% of the population is literate, a higher rate than Mexico City, with an average of 12.6 years of schooling. Other private schools include: • Colegio La Salle Simón Bolívar has two campuses in Mixcoac. • Escuela Sierra Nevada – Centro Educativo Nemi in Colonia del Valle • Escuela Mexicana del Valle / Americana in Colonia del Valle • Tomás Alva Edison School in Colonia del Valle • Instituto México Primaria in Colonia del Valle • Instituto México Secundaria in Xoco • Instituto Simón Bolívar in Xoco • Colegio la Florida • Colegio Williams Mixcoac Campus • Colegio Nuevo Continente – Campus Ciudad de México in Colonia del Valle • Instituto Víctor Hugo ==Transportation==

from Eje Central at rush hour It has 102.5 km of primary roadway, making up 10.9% of that of Mexico City. As of 2003, there were 373,485 vehicles registered in the borough, with over 96% to private owners. This is about ten percent of all cars registered in the city. A dozen major roadways that cross the borough. One system of streets that criss-cross the area is the "Eje" (Axis) roads which include Eje 4 Sur, Eje 5 Sur, Eje 6 Sur, Eje 7 Sur, Eje 7-A Sur, Eje 8 Sur, Eje 3 Poniente, Eje 2 Poniente and Eje Central. In addition, part of the Circuito Interior loop passes through parts of the borough locally known as Avenida Revolución and Río Churubusco. Other major roadways include Boulevard Adolfo López Mateos (Periférico), Viaducto Miguel Alemán, Viaducto Río Becerra and Calzada de Tlalpan. There are eighteen Metro stations and forty-four bus routes. ==See also==