LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Mexico City: Latin America
built 627 days ago
The Spaniards began to reconstruct the city soon after they conquered it. Like most Spanish colonial cities, Mexico City was laid out on a grid pattern. The cathedral and the principal administrative buildings were built around a central plaza, known today as the Zócalo. The mansions and palaces of the elite, most of whom were appointees from Spain, were located in the streets running off the plaza. The poor lived farther away or slept in the streets, while Native Americans lived in jacales (villages of huts) at the city margins.
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Lying near the boundary of the Pacific and North American geological plates, Mexico City has long been at risk for major earthquakes, a risk which has been greatly increased by the city's history. When the Aztecs first settled the area, it was largely covered by an enormous lake, Lake Tenochititlán, which either was filled in or dried out as the city began to grow. Today, Mexico City sits on a soft subsoil that is highly unstable. Some parts it are actually sinking into the old lake bed, while the whole area rides out each earthquake like a boat on an unsettled ocean.
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Mexico City follows a strict “Way of the Gun” judicial policy which means that if you want something, you take it from someone else by threatening them with a firearm. Surprisingly enough, the rape rate in Mexico City if very low but the armed robbery and kidnapping rate is at its highest. Mexico City residents and visitors can be robbed and kidnapped at any moment and any given time of the day. Even after hours, weekends, and holidays. It is illegal for law-abiding citizens in Mexico to own a weapon, this being any kind of weapon, including pocket knives and baseball bats, if intended to used as weapons but criminals are not prosecuted for utilizing a weapon in the course of committing an assault upon a law-abiding citizen. Strangely enough, the laws of the United States of Mexicans are similar and almost identical to the laws of the United States of the North American Continent but with the different that people are not legally required to follow them.
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One of North America's oldest cities, Mexico City was originally built along two lakes, which the Spaniards eventually drained. To bring water to the populace, an underground aquifer was tapped in the early 20th century, and reserves have since been steadily depleted. As a result, underlying soils have compacted, and in less than a century, Mexico City has fallen thirty feet and continues to do so. As underground pipes rupture, buildings crack and subway tunnels shift, the city must expend huge amounts of money to repair the damage, whose end is not even in sight.
-Vehicles with Top Quality Standards will Expand the Car Market in Mexico- -Substantial Demand in the Company's Target Market- MEXICO CITY, Nov. 22 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Grupo Elektra S.A. de C.V. (BMV: ELEKTRA*; Latibex: XEKT), Latin America's leading specialty retailer, consumer finance and banking services company, announced that it will introduce "FAW" automobiles into the Mexican market -- with state of the art technology, and top safety and emission control standards -- oriented to new customers in the marketplace in the first quarter of 2008. The company completed a strategic alliance with First Automobile Works Group (FAW Group) -- the largest automobile group in China, and partner of Volkswagen/Audi, Toyota and Mazda -- which allows Grupo Elektra to sell cars in Mexico that are produced in China. As part of the alliance, within the next three years, Grupo Elektra and FAW Group will build an assembly plant in the state of Michoacan, with important geographical and logistic advantages, to produce cars in Mexico in 2010, with which it will supply the Mexican and Central American demand. The investment to build the plant and purchase equipment will be approximately US$150 million over the three-year period, and the plant will have the capacity to assemble 100,000 vehicles annually.
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Mexico City is ranked 8th among North America’s Top Ten Major Cities of the Future 2007-2008. It is ranked 4th in Economic Potential and 4th as Most Cost Effective. Mexico City was the one of the two Mexican cities that made the top ten, along Guadalajara which ranked 5th place.[19]
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