There are times when art anticipates reality. To better understand the uncontrolled urbanization in Mexico that is currently affecting the residents of Milpa Alta, it is worth watching the film Hands Over the City, by Italian film director Francesco Rosi.
Sixty-two years ago, in this film, Rosi told the story of a city that grows wildly and gets rid of the “old” to “modernize” Naples. In a holy conspiracy, politicians, businessmen, and public officials make big deals by building new homes on agricultural land, modifying municipal development plans, and revaluing the land.
Rosi tells us a story of corruption, bribery, fraudulent land rezoning, favoritism, and gifts. Without ambiguity, she shows the implementation of policies without ethical standards, parties that are agencies for real estate deals, the lack of urban development policies, and the clash between public goods and private interests. Although the film takes place in Naples, it could just as easily take place in Milpa Alta.
Milpa Alta is one of the boroughs that make up Mexico City. Nine indigenous peoples and neighboring communities live there. They recognize themselves as descendants of the ancestral founders. Despite being in the very bowels of the monster, they preserve normative systems, local culture, and assembly life for decision-making. Over the last 55 years, they have resisted savage urbanization processes, promoted in the name of “progress.”
Throughout this time, community members and residents have faced multiple challenges. In the 1970s, they successfully fought to preserve their forests and water against the Loreto and Peña Pobre paper mills. They reclaimed their agricultural organizations and got rid of spurious representatives. People remember well the resistance in the 1970s and 1980s, when the Coordinadora Nacional Plan de Ayala (CNPA) was founded in Milpa Alta. In an episode worthy of a contemporary Fuenteovejuna, in 1980 Daniel Chícharo, a community representative from Milpa Alta who was both feared and hated, was set on fire by community members during an assembly. He died a few hours later.
The most recent episode in this ongoing conflict between the interests of real estate developers and the inhabitants defending their land and territory took place at noon on December 21. On that day, a minority group attempted to impose a closed extraordinary assembly in the town square of San Francisco Tecoxpa. Their objective was to endorse the Cablebús Line 6 project by a show of hands.
As was charged by the original community members and the core of the Agrarian and Indigenous Community of Milpa Alta, the meeting was not a community assembly, but a simulation. It was convened without legal authority, without legitimate representation, and in open violation of Article 27 of the Constitution, agrarian law, and the agrarian community. Today, they point out, there is no legal representation that can convene an assembly of community members. Therefore, what happened was not an assembly, but an imposition.
According to Carlos González, who has been the community’s legal advisor for years, the entire process has been flawed from the outset. He says, “The approval of the protocol on December 10, without the knowledge of the people, was a mistake. December 15 was the information stage. It lasted barely two hours. The assembly was not announced or publicized.”
He explains: “What hurts the residents who oppose the Cablebús the most is that Milpa Alta is made up of nine villages and has a dual character: indigenous and communal. In the agrarian part, according to Article 27 of the Constitution, only the general assembly of community members from the nine villages of Milpa Alta can decide the fate of their lands. But the agrarian part is denied by the government. It says no, that it only wants the indigenous consultation, which the community members consider to be a sham.”
And, he adds, “on the indigenous side, the government has created spokespersons and traditional authorities that suit its purposes. The correct thing to do would be to consult the Milpa Alta community, made up of its nine villages.”
The supposed representative of San Francisco Tecoxpa, one of the nine communal villages, is Luis Linares. He was the one who called the spurious assembly last Sunday. He presents himself as an assistant community representative, but no one knows how he obtained his appointment. No one remembers an assembly being held to appoint him. In 2018, Don Julián Flores, the general representative of the nine villages, died. At that time, Linares pretended to be the general representative, but the District 8 Unitary Agrarian Court rejected him.
Community members claim that Linares has enriched himself by managing forestry crews that receive funds from Corena, made up of pilots. These pilots and their families, as well as other beneficiaries of various government programs, were forced to attend the assembly on the 21st. In addition, he controls taxi stands and street vendors. He is allied with Mayor Octavio Rivero Villaseñor, a figure who, to put it mildly, has been the subject of much discussion.
The land use plan that was attempted to be imposed two years ago in Milpa Alta and was stopped by the community indicated, based on various studies, that if the mass transit infrastructure network grows (as it would with the Cablebús), the land use coefficient (CUS) would increase from 0-2 to 2-4. In other words, a 400 percent increase in construction is expected. To densify the construction in this way is to make the city grow wildly and destroy its pockets of rural life.
In the words of one community member, the Cablebús is not a mobility project, it is an urbanization project. Milpa Alta is today the Nahuatl version of Francesco Rosi’s film Hands Over the City.
Original text by Luis Hernández Navarro published in La Jornada on December 23rd 2025.
Translation by Schools for Chiapas.