Selective modernization of Mexico City and its historic center. Gentrification without displacement?

The logic behind recent processes of urban restructuring in Mexico City is market-oriented. This has increased land and housing prices and has made it more difficult for low-income populations to remain in revalued central areas. This article (1) reviews the growing academic debates about the emergence of gentrification processes in Mexico City and Latin America, where the forms, timing, and intensity of gentrification are different from those in cities of the Global North; (2) analyzes public policies that since the year 2000 have focused on an intensive, compact, and sustainable urban development, and have been oriented toward the selective modernization of the more profitable urban areas; and (3) analyzes the "rescue" of the historic center of the city and the construction of two megaprojects. The question of, and debates about, gentrification that apparently occurs without displacement is central to these three issues.