540,000 In Slum City

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31974, 29 April 1969, Page 6

540,000 In Slum City

th' Z.P.A. Reuter—Copyright) NETZAHUALCOYOTL (Mexico). Only 15 minutes drive south of the flashing neon lights of Mexico City, 540,000 people live in cardboard houses and iron-sheds in one of the youngest and fastestgrowing slum cities in the world.

Municipal authorities found: after a recent census that the! self-governing slum city, named after an Aztec king, has increased its population t sixfold since 1960, posing the ; biggest single municipal , problem to the Mexican ( Government at its very door- ■ step. I Only the main street is > paved in Netzahualcoyotl. . There is no drainage or trees, and flowers are as rare as 1 drinking water, which is sold by the can at street markets.

I Only five of the 58 districts ' enjoy electricity and one policeman looks after 10,000 inhabitants, leaving the advice to the citizens: "Do not go out on the streets after 10 o'clock at night.” The Public Works Department of the State of Mexico considered it would take its entire development grant for six years to rejuvenate the slum city. Netzahualcoyotl was first settled about 12 years ago by peasants from the provinces and poor people from the capital looking for a roof The settlement was declared a city six years ago. Gerado Cornejo, president of the Population Studies Foundation in Mexico, said the residents were driven to the slum city by the misery of their living conditions in Mexico City and the provinces. “Only much later do they find out the reality of things, but then it's too late, and after all they have a roof over their head." he said. The 40 square miles of land on which the city stands becomes flooded each rainy season, causing deaths and forcing residents to paddle in makeshift boats to higher land.

I During the hot summer, dust clouds from a dried-up i lake basin cover the city with | a coat of sand. With a rapidly increasing crime rate, including a series of assaults, officials in Mexico ■ City have debated what can be done to stop the slum city from spreading further. Statisticians estimate that j by 1972 the city will have a population of one million.