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This dissertation examines the moralization and beautification campaigns of Mexico City's mayor Ernesto P. Uruchurtu. As head of the Department of the Federal District from 1952-1966, his policies encouraged more popular housing, improved infrastructure, better transportation, cleaner markets, and safer streets. Uruchurtu also aimed to crack down on vice and beautify the city. He believed that through beautification and moralization the city would become safer, healthier, and more livable for all residents. Significantly, he promoted the expansion and improvement of parks, gardens, recreational facilities, the repairing and building of fountains, and the planting of trees and flowers, especially gladiolas. Living with more green and athletic spaces, urban dwellers would have the opportunity to improve physically and spiritually, and would feel inspired to lead more moral lives. Residents could then collectively come together to take pride in their city and generate a stronger sense of civic culture. Consequently, a new generation of youth would grow up in a healthier urban environment and promote national prosperity.This dissertation explores these policies and analyzes the debates surrounding Oscar Lewis's anthropological work, The Children of Sanchez, to highlight anxieties about the effects of urbanization, modernization, and industrialization on the capital's inhabitants. Following the book's publication in 1964, hundreds of articles appeared in newspapers and magazines responding to its subject matter; the intimate details about life for one "typical" poor family living in a slum tenement in the city's center. The debates underscored the uneven benefits of Uruchurtu's policies and offered insights into contradictory depictions of Mexico City: the prospering center of industrialization and growth, and the hub of poverty and despair. Responses to the book expressed how many of the poor experienced economic and political changes during the 1950s and 1960s. The debates also offered details about the cultural and social implications of Uruchurtu's administrative policies and provided a unique opportunity for an open public exchange about life in the capital.

The word "vecindad" in Spanish means neighborhood, but the word is also used to describe a dwelling form. The vecindad is usually known as a row of one-room dwellings surrounding an open space or patio. This kind of dwelling form exists in most Latin American countries as well as in Spain, however the word "vecindad" is used exclusively in Mexico. This dwelling form existed in Spain under the name of "corrales" and it was brought to Mexico in the XVI century with the Conquest of 1521. Initially, vecindades were built as multi-family tenements to rent to low-income artisans or workers in Mexico. There are two kinds: the multi-storied ones which were built within the Traza, which was the first design of Mexico City by the Spaniards; and the one-storied buildings built in the Indian barrios located on the periphery of the Traza. / While each vecindad is different, they share the same elements such as the zahuan (entrance), the patio, the dwellings and the accesorias (commercial spaces). The number and dimensions of these elements vary depending on the characteristics of each vecindad. / From the XVI century until the early XX century, vecindades comprised the majority of the housing stock in Mexico City. In the 1940's, due to the ideas of Functionalism, vecindades ceased to be built and were relegated as an old and traditional dwelling form in the center of the city. / This thesis presents the origin, evolution and present condition of vecindades within the Traza of Mexico City. Their adaptability to fulfill social, cultural and political circumstances throughout the history of Mexico City reveals their importance as the city's main collective urban dwelling form.

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