It sounded so soulless and awful I had to check it out. It turned out to be not as bad as I'd heard. There were in fact, a few bus routes. Everything else was spot on. Santa Fe is a limp dick dipped in glitter and showcased in a glass box.
I admit I'm a little biased. For one, I despise suburbs in general because they're basically a tax on everyone else when you consider the amount of infrastructure that has to be extended (which the city as a whole pays for), the extra pollution from cars, the waste of energy and water, the highways to and from which chop up the city, ad nauseum.
Secondly, there is the nature of exclusion. I have no problems with people being rich, it's just dangerous and harmful for everyone else when the rich live in a bubble enclave with no connection to the city. When your chauffeured Mercedes-Benz drives you the five minutes from your mansion in the sky to your corporate tower every day, and your weekend never takes you beyond the gourmet grocery store and exclusive club, you might as well be living in Dubai as far your relationship to Mexico and Mexico City goes. Why is this bad? Because you end up with either no connection to the city, or worse, a totally misunderstood one. A lack of empathy coupled with paranoia and misunderstanding in the very people who have immense power over the city is a bad situation.
Driving to Santa Fe (there's no metro connection there), is a surreal experience. As you approach, the neighborhoods you pass through get more and more impoverished, which is logical when you consider that 30 years ago, you were approaching a massive landfill. There's a sudden break of nothingness and bam, the two lane roads become four lanes, the grass on the medians are manicured, and you're passing mirrored skyscrapers.
The Santa Fe mall is one of the largest in Mexico. It's a really nice mall, immaculate, white stone floors, polished steel, glass railings soaring atria, freezing air conditioned climate, diffuse sunlight. There is both an Emporio Armani and an Armani Exchange, any and all luxury labels, a Chili's, a BestBuy, a Sak's Fifth Avenue, a Sears, Zara, Crocs, and Gap. To navigate the five floors of the mall, the directory is an massive interactive touchscreen which gives you verbal directions to the store you're looking for. The upper floors with fewer stores, massive open spaces, and more daylight, feel like an international airport terminal. It was also pretty deserted. I was there on a sunday afternoon. Maybe its the family meal time, but usually, sunday afternoon, malls are packed.
From the mall I walked up the street to the hotel Distrito Capital, a luxury boutique hotel which I'd been interested in seeing for awhile for it's design. The front door opens to a long dark corridor lined on both sides with mirrors ringed with lights with a single elevator at the end. The elevator takes you up to the lobby floor where there's a reception, bar, pool, and restaurant. I grabbed a beer at the bar. Everything was very nice, modern, gray, glass and vegetation. Only a few guests. I drank my expensive beer and listened in to the conversation of some adminstrative disciplinarians for an international corporation.
Leaving, I walked down the avenue between the massive towers, marveling at both the architecture and the uncanny resemblance to Dubai. There was only building on the avenue which had a few stores at the base- a few upscale restaurants and a gourmet grocery store. There were a few people out on the street. All of them were private security guards or parking attendants. I was stopped by the police who told me not to take any photos of any buildings. No explanation why. Welcome to the land of paranoia. I finished my walk to the end of the street, and jumped on a bus to take me away from this sterile wasteland.
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