Lessons in City Planning from the Mexican Corner Store

Mixed use neighborhoods and walkable neighborhoods in Mexican cities and towns.

4 minute read

May 24, 2016, 5:00 AM PDT

By Casey Brazeal @northandclark


Mexico Street

Gerardo C.Lerner / Shutterstock

On Calle America Latina on the block between Calle Chile and Avenida Tercer Mundo in San Francisco, Mexico there's always someone walking down the street. In the early morning, surfers go out to catch the waves that break at dawn; then there is the march of children and mothers to school alongside workers off to open shops or travel to construction sites just out of town. After the morning rush, there are the many trips by homemakers to corner shops for fruit, coffee, and other groceries. Around midday children come home from half-day classes, and tourists amble to taquerias. The afternoon sees the return of workers and more tourists making their ways to beaches or back to hotels. Diners usually eat later here, and at nine o'clock there are as many people on the street as any time of day. Not just shop owners, vendors, and tourists, but children playing tag, teenagers gossiping in front of convenience stores, and adults chatting about the events of the day. As the night grows later and people return home, many are not enclosed inside their houses. Even TV watchers often have their doors open to allow a breeze to circulate or to create a chance to converse with a neighbor on her way home.

I've lived in and visited dozens of cities and towns in Mexico, and Calle America Latina is not unusual. This partly residential street in a little tourist town by the sea perfectly illustrates the amount of life spent outside of the house because of how typical it is.

The side street I lived on in Guadalajara's Colonia del Fresno was also home to a number of small businesses. My next door neighbor sold pozole (hominy soup) out her front door. When the weather was nice, she put out two plastic folding tables on the sidewalk, and her home became an outdoor café.

There were corner stores at the intersection at either end of our block. Across from one of those stores was an "internet café," which consisted of four computers connected to the internet and one drip coffee maker. The other corner was home to a small popsicle warehouse, which was only rarely open for business.

All this street activity made the neighborhood feel safe, and I would imagine, in a practical way, the neighborhood was a great deal safer than many. This was in 2007, Mexico was regularly in the news for kidnappings and drug trafficking. But that world didn’t seem to touch our working class neighborhood. Kidnappers would likely have found our neighborhood undesirable as it lacked rich people or tourists. When I saw drugs in the area it was not young men on sidewalks staking their claim to a corner, it would be high schoolers smoking weed in parks, but that wouldn't shock anyone that spent any time in the parks in Chicago.

These businesses didn't appear because of some subsidy or local business encouragement program, they were simply permitted to exist. No planner had made a perfect spot for them. They just sprang up, and there was no licensing body to tell them they had to shut down. It's a phenomenon that Jose Castillo calls informal, a term that’s "deliberately ambiguous"meaning casual, unsanctioned, and lacking a precise form.

This is not to say that an unplanned neighborhood didn't create their own problems. One was the presence or height of seemingly random speed bumps. Whatever the process was for locating speed bumps in the city of Guadalajara, it left a lot to be desired. Speed bumps would often immediately follow green lights. Once when driving in a car with a low clearance, we literally got stuck on a ridiculously tall speed bump. Another was street addresses which followed no discernible pattern. Many houses, including my own, had no number. The only description I could offer for where my house was the street name and the two intersections it sat between. This meant certain things that should have been easy were pretty hard. We never received mail. When I had an international visitor coming, I couldn't tell him exactly which house to go to. He ended up walking to one of the corner stores and asking the owner where the tall American lived.

Still the vitality of these neighborhoods makes me think dense, vibrant, mixed-use neighborhoods might be easier to create than we imagine. If cities can get out of their own ways, the people who live in them might make those cities safer and more active all their own.


Casey Brazeal

Casey Brazeal is a Chicago-based writer and planner. His background includes time as a research assistant at the Urban Transportation Center and as a reporter with a weekly column for Extra Newspaper in Chicago. He’s also published news stories and interviews for New City Newspaper, Vócalo Radio and Site Sketch 101. Casey received a Masters in Urban Planning and Policy from the University of Illinois in Chicago. While at UIC Casey received a certificate in Public Transit Planning and Management.

portrait of professional woman

I love the variety of courses, many practical, and all richly illustrated. They have inspired many ideas that I've applied in practice, and in my own teaching. Mary G., Urban Planner

I love the variety of courses, many practical, and all richly illustrated. They have inspired many ideas that I've applied in practice, and in my own teaching.

Mary G., Urban Planner

Get top-rated, practical training

Bird's eye view of manufactured home park.

Manufactured Crisis: Losing the Nation’s Largest Source of Unsubsidized Affordable Housing

Manufactured housing communities have long been an affordable housing option for millions of people living in the U.S., but that affordability is disappearing rapidly. How did we get here?

March 25, 2025 - Shelterforce

U-Haul truck on road with blurred grassy roadside in background.

Americans May Be Stuck — But Why?

Americans are moving a lot less than they once did, and that is a problem. While Yoni Applebaum, in his highly-publicized article Stuck, gets the reasons badly wrong, it's still important to ask: why are we moving so much less than before?

March 27, 2025 - Alan Mallach

Close-up of rear car bumper in traffic on freeway.

Research Shows More Roads = More Driving

A national study shows, once again, that increasing road supply induces additional vehicle travel, particularly over the long run.

March 23, 2025 - Road Capacity as a Fundamental Determinant of Vehicle Travel

Silver electric BMW car parked in driveway of home in Oakland, California.

Oakland to Add 244 New EV Chargers

Oakland plans to launch its new charging network at eight locations by the end of 2025.

15 minutes ago - City of Oakland

Sculpture of seated Jane Goodall holding hands with chimp on green lawn.

Jane Goodall Inspires with Message of Hope, Resilience, and Environmental Action

Speaking in Pasadena, Jane Goodall offered a hopeful and inspirational message, urging global compassion, environmental responsibility, and the power of individual action to shape a better future.

1 hour ago - Pasadena Star-News

Close-up of small brown mushrooms growing in soil and moist green moss.

Harnessing the Power of Fungi for Environmental Cleanup

Mycoremediation — the use of fungi to break down or absorb environmental pollutants — offers a promising, cost-effective, and eco-friendly alternative to conventional methods for restoring contaminated sites.

2 hours ago - ecohustler

Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools

This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.

Planning for Universal Design

Learn the tools for implementing Universal Design in planning regulations.

Write for Planetizen