A green revolution is sweeping across the car and concretejungle of Mexico City, an infamously smoggy capital that was once dubbed"Makesicko City" by novelist Carlos Fuentes. Residents are growingvegetables on rooftops, planting trees where buildings once stood, hopping onbicycles and riding in electric taxis, defying the urban landscape in thismetropolis of 20 million people and four million cars.
"This is our vote for the environment," said EliasCattan, a 33-year-old bespectacled architect pointing to the lettuce, onionsand chillies growing in a planting table and inside used tires on the balconyof his rooftop office. "It's a window to the future and it is veryimportant that we reconnect with the earth," he said as light rain fell onthe sprouts atop the five-story building in the trendy Condesa neighborhood.
Like a growing number of Mexico City residents, Cattan bikesto work in a maze of roads renowned for their giant traffic jams. Twenty yearsago, the United Nations declared the Mexican capital the world's most pollutedcity. Fuentes envisioned black acid rain in his novel "ChristopherUnborn," but in real life the air was so nasty that birds dropped dead inthis megalopolis 2,240 meters above sea level. While Mexico City still has highlevels of pollutants, it has dropped off the top 10 blacklist, thanks totraffic restrictions and the closure of factories but also because other citieshave become grimier.
The left-wing city government has carried out a "greenplan" since 2007 to clean up the capital, but many citizens have alsotaken it upon themselves to change their habits. The city has placed 500,000plants across the city, expanded a popular bicycle loan program, opened a newsubway line and launched an "eco" bus that runs on natural gas.Electric, zero-emission taxis began buzzing in the city center this year. Thevehicles recharge in power stations that get 25 percent of their energy fromsolar panels. Fully powered up, the cabs can run for six hours straight.
Many go to Chapultepec Park on the first Sunday of everymonth to trade their recyclables -- empty bottles, paper, cardboard -- forlocally-grown produce such as tomatoes, corn and nopal (an edible cactus) in acity program. A corporate-funded citizen initiative known as VerdMX hasinstalled huge "vertical gardens" to spruce up the city and clean theair. One of its most visible structures is a green arch on the heavily-traveledChapultepec Avenue.
Cattan has received help from Gabriela Vargas, a 43-year-oldformer photographer whose passion was born 12 years ago, when she plantedvegetables in her balcony to make tastier, healthier food for her daughter.Last year, her organization Cultiva Ciudad (Cultivate City) donated 6,000 treesto various city districts that were grown inside the city. Her new project isan orchard where she will grow apple, guava, peach and medlar trees. The cityis lending her a 1,650-square-meter terrain where a high-rise building wasdemolished.
Though carbon monoxide levels are down by 90 percent from 20years ago, the city still has above recommended levels of ozone and suspendedparticulates, another pollutant. "The good news is that the trend has beena consistent reduction (of ozone) in the last 10 years," said ArmandoRetama, director of the city's air quality monitoring service. "If thetrend holds, Mexico City's contamination problem will be almost resolved in 10years."
