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By Jonathan Clark PART TWO IN A THREE-PART SERIES: This story was originally published in the Mexico edition of The Miami Herald on March 30, 2005. For almost 70 years now, the family of Mercurio Lopez Casillas has been selling used and rare books in Mexico City's Historic Center. The business started with an uncle and his father and a stand of 20 titles on El Salvador Street. Today, Lopez Casillas and five of his 11 brothers and sisters operate 13 bookshops selling more than 50,000 titles along the center's Donceles Street. According to Lopez Casillas, the area has changed just as much as the business itself. "Ten years ago or so, we would open the store in the morning and right away we'd have books and things stolen," he said. "But today, quite definitely, it is a much safer, more secure place. I have left the store at 3 or 4 a.m. and there were five policemen out on the street. Before, there wasn't a single one." It's not just the number of police on the street that has changed: Lopez Casillas also points to newly installed street lights, building facades freshly painted by the city, and road surfaces repaved with cobblestones. All of these changes have worked to make Donceles Street a better place to do business, he says. The effort to restore Donceles Street has come as part of a larger program to renovate and revitalize Mexico City's Historic Center - the largest and oldest such center in the Americas. But while many of the changes in services, infrastructure and security have served to make the Historic Center a better place for commerce, some members of the established business community say that the rising costs of operating in the area are driving them out. "We are pleased that there has been a large investment of city money, especially in terms of public services like security," said Guadalupe Gomez Collada, head of the Association of Established Business Owners of the Historic Center. "But there are many businesses with a long tradition here, and we don't have the means to survive any longer. The cost of everything services, rents is going up, and the only ones that can afford to do business here anymore are the large chains." Lopez Casillas also expresses concern over the rise in costs. "What's happening now is that the city has repaved the streets and painted facades, and so the owners of the buildings have taken notice and started to raise the rents," he said. "We worry that our landlords will raise the rents so much that we'll have to move out or that they might start thinking about getting rid of us so they can put an Oxxo in our place." Indeed, as large chain store businesses have been lured into the Historic Center, 24-hour Oxxo and 7-Eleven convenience stores have been popping up on street corners throughout the area. AN ABUNDANCE OF CONVENIENCE Gabriel Acevedo has been living in the Centro on Venustiano Carranza Street for about four years. He says that when he first moved into his building, there was one tiendita, or small convenience store, four blocks away that served an entire 20-block radius. Now he says there are 7-Eleven and Oxxo stores within a block in each direction, with another ready to open on the street level of his building. "It's seems a little absurd to me," Acevedo said. "I mean, there are five Oxxos or 7-Elevens right around here now, and I really only need one." "When you see this phenomenon of 7-Eleven and Oxxo, it's because they have started providing service to people who are moving back into the center," said Ana Lilia Cepeda, director of the Historic Center Commission, the office directing the city's efforts in the renewal project. "Twenty years ago there weren't stores like this, because nobody needed them people weren't living here any longer." Rosario Manjarrez is the owner of a small convenience store on Donceles Street, a street she says was a "disaster" before the city's renovation efforts. A 7-Eleven recently opened two blocks from her, but she hasn't noticed any loss of sales so far. Manjarrez says she is confident that she can continue to hold her own against the chains. But one thing that does give her worry is the possibility that the owner of her building might raise her rent or opt to evict her in favor of a Oxxo, 7-Eleven, or another large retail chain. The owner of Manjarrez's building is none other than Carlos Slim, Mexico's most accomplished capitalist, and, according to Forbes magazine, the world's fourth-richest man. And while the bulk of his US$23.8 billion in wealth derives from the telecommunications industry, Slim also owns several large retail chains, including Sanborn's restaurants and gift shops, Mix-Up music/video shops and Sears department stores. Slim's Historic Center Foundation downplays the billionaire's prominence in the restoration effort. "We are responsible for only one-sixth of the new investment in the center and we own less than 1 percent of the buildings there," said the foundation's director, Adrian Pandal. Still, Slim's name has become synonymous with the center's renewal as he has purchased buildings and opened up stores throughout the neighborhood. Jose Bravo, a member of the established business owners association, thinks the city has gone too far in inviting Slim and other big business interests into the area. He says that as the center fills up with chains like McDonald's, Sanborn's, Office Max, and Wal-Mart-owned VIPs restaurants, the historical and cultural integrity of the area is suffering. "Why is it that they haven't allowed a McDonald's in the historic center of Guanajuato? Why are there so few chain stores in Morelia?" he asked. "It's because civil society and the business communities in those cities don't permit it. They are protecting their heritage. Here in Mexico City, the government isn't allowing its people the same voice." 'AMBULANTES' UNWELCOME One thing the city and business owners can agree on is the need to remove the ambulantes, or unlicensed street peddlers, who for generations have plied their trade on the neighborhood's avenues and sidewalks. The restoration effort calls for their ouster, but progress on that front has been questionable. "People here have been accustomed to shopping in the street for a long time," Cepeda said. "And of course, we do not want the sidewalks to be privatized. Still, we've been negotiating with the ambulantes to relocate them to areas outside of the renewal zone, into commercial plazas." Gomez Collada and Bravo say that moving the street vendors to other areas of the center just creates problems for businesses in the relocation zones. They point to the Eje Central Lazaro Cardenas, a main city thoroughfare that runs past the renewal area, where 1,500 ambulantes are now set up on the sidewalks in front of 143 established businesses businesses that, unlike the ambulantes, have to pay rent, services and taxes. "Where is this program to get rid of the ambulantes? It doesn't exist," Gomez Collada said. "They just move them from one place to another. That's not a program." Gomez Collada and her associate Bravo say that the city has conceded too much to the street vendors. They allege that the municipal government has been soft on the ambulantes because the vendors can deliver large blocks of votes and an easily mobilized support force for rallies and demonstrations. "It's very simple - it's a matter of corruption," Bravo said. FEELING UPBEAT Lopez Casillas, the Donceles Street bookseller, is more measured in his assessment of the street vendors. "The center has been home to this kind of commerce since the time of the Aztecs, and so it's going to be tough to get rid of them," he says. And despite his concern over rising rents and potential arrival of chain stores to Donceles Street, Lopez Casillas remains upbeat when he talks about the Historic Center renovation project. "I still see a process that is making the area more livable, making it so that people want to come here again," he said. "It's a slow process, and who knows if they'll be able to succeed? I guess we'll see." |