Restoring an ancient lake from the rubble of an airport in Mexico City | Hacker News Reader

Restoring an ancient lake from the rubble of an airport in Mexico City

technologyreview.com

97 pointsThevet24 comments

This is interesting:

> "Echeverria’s vision for the park is part of a wave of projects that have upended the traditional goal of ecosystem restoration: returning ecosystems to the state they were in before humans damaged them. Instead of seeking to roll back the clock, Echeverria is creating an artificial wetland that aims to transform the future of the entire Valley region, drawing lessons from both Tenochtitlan and modern Mexico City on how thriving cities can coexist with flourishing ecosystems. "

Part of the justification for this approach is the relatively new recognition of the large ecological footprint of pre-European peoples, and their extensive manipulation of the natural environment, e.g. the use of controlled burns in grassland areas, etc. "Pristine" environments were often not-so-pristine, so a new managed system is not any different from an old managed system, although you'd ideally want similar levels of ecological productivity and diversity.

Another is that climatic effects are going to be significant, e.g. in the long run the only way to save some species, such as California redwoods, may be to plant new stands in Oregon, Washington and Canada. This would be 'managed ecological migration'.

People want to live next to green spaces. What if our developed areas had boulevards of trees (or other native plants)? You may have to sell fewer units or (shudder) increase density, but then people would have access to the kind of environment they want.

Brooklyn is kind of like this, with a network of parkways connecting parks. Although those parkways are roads, as well as linear parks. I suspect you're thinking of something more like Atlanta's Beltline system (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BeltLine). My area of New Jersey also has Greenways (https://www.greenway.org/states/new-jersey).

Tenochtitlan, the old Aztec capital that became Mexico City was absolutely fascinating. More impressive than Venice at the time. One of the top places I would love to see if I could time travel.

https://davisabong1982.blogspot.com/2021/08/tenochtitlan-azt...

The podcast Fall of Civilizations does a great job of telling the astounding, heartbreaking story of how Tenochtitlan got conquered by the Spanish. What really blew my mind is that it was not at all inevitable. It always seemed to me growing up that the Europeans took over the Americas due to superior tech or something, but I don't think that's true at all. I also had to confront the complex reality that the Aztecs were certainly not some kind of benevolent empire, nonetheless, the conquest was an incredible humanitarian catastrophe.

yeah, 800 conquistadors and tens of thousands of locals looting the city kind of upsets the idyllic picture of living in harmony with each other and the nature.

At least a lot of Nahua and Maya are still around, making up 15% of the country. They went through some truly tragic events indeed but at least they managed to keep their culture to this day. I hope they double down on it and keep it for generations to come.

Anecdotal, but I was in the Yucatan Peninsula in 2019 doing Spanish classes. My teacher was Maya, and he said now it had become fashionable to be able to speak Yucatec Maya whereas growing up you didn't want to. Several other of the Maya teachers also confirmed, and stated they were (ré)learning when they might've forgotten or not been raised with it.

They were also very much 'Somos Maya first, it was the core part of their identity, over being Mexican.

The same is less true for the Chuj Maya I taught in the States, though since they immigrated there they're at much greater risk of assimilation and losing their culture. But a lot of work had to be done in teaching them to not be ashamed to be Maya. But, given they mostly were refugees from Guatemala, it makes sense.

That's really interesting, thanks! I find it really interesting to understand how different the pre- and post-Columbian experiences were/are across the Americas. In the Amazon, you still have people who were never directly impacted by colonization (although certainly everyone has been indirectly impacted at this point).

Aztecs were brutal to their vassal states, that's why the Tlaxcaltecs allied with the invaders in hope of improvement. To this day, there is still a, mostly tongue-in-cheek, grudge against the inhabitants of Tlaxcala, to the point of claiming that it is an imaginary place.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/13/mexico-tlaxcal...

Beware clicking anything on this website! It will open a billion tabs!

aims to transform the future of the entire Valley region, ...thriving cities can coexist with flourishing ecosystems.

Excellent. We need a lot more of this.

Then there is a section about the city sinking unevenly due to groundwater (aquifer) depletion, plus the city is prone to flooding due to hardscape -- pavement, etc. This goes hand in hand. Hardscape both promotes flooding and prevents groundwater recharge and for the same reason at the same time. They hope to remedy this (at least partially) with this project.

He aims to restore nesting and overwintering grounds for more than 150 kinds of birds along a migratory corridor from Alaska down to South America.

This would be the Pacific Flyway, an important migratory route for many birds. Planned rail development in Solano County, California is currently threatening critical habitat along this flyway with a planned stop that will sink into the marsh like Venice and never have much traffic (unless they decide to rubber stamp even more urban development in this sensitive wetland area to justify the rail stop). Birds need nesting and feeding grounds and safe spaces periodically all up and down this flyway.

President López Obrador made it a personal mission to cancel the Texcoco (NAIM) airport, which was going to cost a billion dollars, but be first-class for a city that urgently needs better airport infrastructure.

López Obrador cancelled with a public poll, sidestepping the INE, the electoral institute in charge of democratic polls, curiously the same institute he's trying to capture this year. The poll was called "Mexico decides", but only 1% of the registered electors voted, and the voting booths were disproportionately installed in territories favorable to López. The airport was cancelled as a result.

The cancellation of the NAIM broke contracts which had to be paid, so it still cost the same as it had been constructed. López immediately switched construction to Santa Lucía (AIFA), a small military base incapable of supporting an international airport, gave profitable contracts to the army and his collaborators, and as of now, we have a toy airport which has cost 2-3 times what the NAIM would.

This restoration project seems aimed to destroy what remains of the NAIM, in case the next president tries to recover it in 2024. I'm sure it will siphon a lot of money, just like the other presidential projects in progress.

In the future, I wonder if someone may write an article "Restoring an ancient airport from the rubble of a lake in Mexico City"...

I think the biggest risk is not that the successor of Echeverria brings back the airport project, but rather that the restoration project becomes commercialised in a way that leaves little or nothing of the original ecosystem restoration agenda.

This is certainly a political issue. AMLO is the first president in his party and they're trying to lay down roots.

Is it a good idea regardless of the political merits?

That's quite debatable. What is clear, though, is that the city's current airport is bursting at the seams.

They opened another airport instead, but it's in suburbia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felipe_%C3%81ngeles_Internatio...

It's a good idea for Mexico City to substantially increase green space. However, it's also a good idea for the city to augment its air transport infrastructure. The AMLO government has made a bold decision, and time will tell how it works out.

The AMLO government made a populist decision. After burning $5B. He also vowed not to use the presidential plane that was already delivered and paid for, a 787, no less... They couldn't sell it, so it rotted for a few years until it was "donated" to an airline. Finally, they built another airport much farther away and with very little oversight over how the contracts were awarded.

So I think it's just another flavor of bad. And don't get me starter on AMLO's gutting of the electoral commission.

I think it is a good idea considering the temporal frame of reference. Payback on projects like these take decades. Furthermore the objectives of whichever local official with any sense of wit and honor most certainly must encompass and protect the needs of local citizens and global directives at the expense of energetically and ecologically expensive tech of arguably dubious merit.

> ...for example, chinampas—the lake system’s artificial islands, built from reeds—created small canals where species like the axolotl thrived.

That's an interesting - and potentially misleading - take on Axolotls and their habitat [ref. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axolotl]

the steel columns bordering the main terminal were sold as scrap to recoup a fraction of the $5 billion spent on the airport’s construction.

Cue 'sunk cost' arguments.

Uncue ‘sunk cost’ arguments.

Phew that was close.

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