An unpopular president, a myth-making architect, and a multibillionaire tycoon are building an oversize airport in a nature preserve.

Can they make Mexico great again?

The architect Norman Foster (with mic), flanked by President Enrique Peña Nieto and architect Fernando Romero, with a model of the new Mexico City international airport.
The architect Norman Foster (with mic), flanked by President Enrique Peña Nieto and architect Fernando Romero, with a model of the new Mexico City international airport. © Eruviel Ávila

the current Mexican president, Enrique Peña Nieto, cowers beneath corruption scandals and historically low approval ratings, the White House is occupied by a tin-pot banana-Republican who tars Mexican immigrants as “rapists” and vows to build a border wall on an installment plan. The first state visit was cancelled last month, after a phone call in which President Trump suggested sending troops over the border to deal with “a bunch of bad hombres down there.” An anonymous White House official later dismissed Trump’s threat as “lighthearted.” In any case, it’s unlikely the America Firster will ever fly south with “¡Viva México!” on his lips.1

Viewed from, say, 38,000 feet, the project is jaw-dropping. The price tag runs US$13 billion, and the initial annual capacity of nearly 60 million passengers will put it on par with the international airport in Miami, the de facto capital of Latin America. After expansion, it could serve 120 million passengers, a figure never approached in the history of commercial aviation. All this, Peña Nieto insists, will be delivered on a model of good government and open competition, a clean break with his party’s crony-capitalist past.

But surveyed at ground level, I found a project buffeted by criticism. Environmental advocates are aghast at the destruction of the nature preserve. Civil engineers warn that the lakebed site is unstable — the ground has sunk roughly 25 feet in the past half century and is still subsiding — making it technically unwise to build upon. The villagers who live nearby fear rising property values will attract gangs and corruption in a nation where the rule of law remains weak. And just about everyone mutters that for all promises about “transparency” and “open competition,” the project is producing work for the usual suspects: tycoon Carlos Slim, Mexico’s richest man, and his son-in-law court architect, Fernando Romero.

The sharpest criticism comes from a younger generation of planners and designers who have drawn acclaim for their small-scale urban interventions, the kind pioneered in cities like Amsterdam or Medellín that then proliferate around the world. This crowd questions the value of Peña Nieto’s megaproyecto, or really any megaproyecto, in a country that faces such deep social, economic, and environmental challenges. The new airport, in their eyes, is a shiny object that will distract from (or exacerbate) more pressing concerns. Why, they wonder, is the government doubling down to win a game — achieving global respect through starchitecture — that no one even plays any more?

  • 1. It might disappoint Trump to learn that his border folly is not the only oversize infrastructure project in the hemisphere. With the PRI back in power, President Enrique Peña Nieto is building the grandest megaproyecto ever attempted — an enormous new airport set to rise on a sinking lakebed in the middle of a nature preserve. Once completed, there will be no need to drag visiting heads of state around town to tour the presidential legacy project. Every trip will begin with an obligatory tour of Peña Nieto’s masterpiece.