Why Mexico City's Geography SUCKS 

Spain: *tries to conquer the Aztec’s capital The Aztecs: What are you doing in my swamp?!

A bird eating a snake told us to put it here. We had no choice

History of Mexico city: -No mame jefe es un pinché lago +Quedará mamalon

Cómo ciudadano de la CDMX puedo decirte abiertamente y con toda certeza sin miedo a cometer algún error al decirte que la CDMX es un lugar que no fue planeado y creció a lo pendejo.

Conclusion: Aztec engineers were better than Spanish engineers

Mexico City's government: "And how can we solve this problem?" Real Life Lore: "Do you know about SKILLSHARE...?"

the conquest of Tenochtitlan wasn't just Spanish vs Aztecs, it was an anti-Aztec Alliance lead by Cortez and followed by the top Aztec enemies in the region, the Tlaxcaltecas and multiple other vassal cities rebelling against Aztec rule. There were only 600 Spanish soldiers and thousands of Indigenous enemies of the Aztecs. Tenochtitlan was just half of the island the other half was Tlatelolco a different city with a different ruler but it was also Mexica.

Tenochtitlan was also a waste-free city. Unlike London or other european cities at the time, they had a very proficient system for organic and inorganic waste disposal. The water was clean and everyone showered regularly.

Venice: I'm sinking in the ocean; Mexico City: I'm sinking in the earth.

"This is our promised land!" "But... Its water, not land." "Not with that attitude."

I live in Mexico City and because of the fragile terrain (you can go to the downtown and see how the cathedral and many buildings are sinking) the earthquakes are specially destructive here, literally makes you feel like you're stand on a jelly. Everyone fears them.

In Cortés' diaries, Cortés expressed his amazement and admiration at seeing such a wonderful city. The Aztec Empire had clean water, they could bathe, they had food and canals that worked perfectly, but they did not take advantage of the city as it was.

It didn't sucked until some crazy guy thought about building a city literally above an already perfectly built city

Italy: We got a leaning tower. Mexico: Amateurs

As a mexicain the lives in mexico city in our history class were taught that during the colonial period they tried to move the capital from mexico city to somewhere in Puebla because of the massive floodings and the spread of deseases and they even started the construction copies of important buildings in that place but at the last moment the king of spain told them that they would stay in mexico city and they just obey

Mexico City does have one huge geographic advantage. The weather is great all year around, heating and cooling costs are very low compared to most other places.

Patrick: “Why don’t we take Mexico City and push it somewhere else!”

“Imagine your house 30 m lower” The Netherlands 🇳🇱: 🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊🌊

As a Filipino I have always been fascinated by Mexico City ever since as a child and it's still my dream destination in the Americas..

Aztecs: Look at this incredible city we decided to build here, it's an architectural marvel- Spaniards: *destroys it* Aztecs: .... Spaniards: Oh no! The Spaniards proceeding to build a new city and shrinks the lake: _Anyway_ By the way, Mexica is pronounced "Meshika"

"Imagine your house sinking 30 meters" Me, who lives below the sea-level already: _uhh, I'd rather not_

"they've managed to reduce their air pollution levels to be similar to Los Angeles" thats still pretty fuckin awful

Reading some comments from experts in the matter, I have to say, well done in this informative video about the city I was born but did not grow up in. I would like to know why you guys did not add your research notes. It would have given it a more powerful statement. Regardless, thank you for such a great job! Teotihuacan is the most fantastic place in México City. There are two main pyramids for those who have not been there, The Sun and The Moon pyramids. Standing on top of the Moon pyramid, one can appreciate an incredible view called by the Aztecs the "Avenida de Los Muertos" or "The Avenue of the Deaths." A sight to see!

This sounds like more of a management problem than a geography problem. The area has fertile soil and incredible conditions for agriculture. Modernizing their transportation and water management systems basically solve all their problems. Replace cars with public transit and cycling, tear up all that concrete that cars were previously using, and suddenly you can replenish the aquifer again. Throw in some intentional water retention and dams to manage flooding to speed up the process, if you want, but it's certainly not an impossible project.

-"We will build the city here" -"Boss, its a fucking lake" -"it's going to be mamalon" And so it was.

Me, who has been living there almost his entire life: they forgot the active volcano.

some missing data: it was not just one lake, it was a lake system made up of 5 lakes: Texcoco, Chalco, Xochimilco, Xaltocan y Zumpango

Really interesting, thank you for this video, even the sponsorship segment brought something good (motivation!)

Imagine being the bird that caused the creation of Mexico City and is now on their flag

so you're telling me that the aztecs had a metropolitan city with the population size of boston perfectly suited to their environment and the spaniards came and short-sightedly imposed their european building methods onto the city and it was a disaster? 🤔

Así es, lo que dice nuestro estimado amigo es verdad. Gracias por informar acerca del tema, incluso para los que somos mexicanos, hay información que desconocíamos. Gracias! Saludos desde Guadalajara, Jalisco, México.

Cualquiera : no se puede construir ahí... Azteca: ¿Cómo chingados no? B|

Ancient Geographists: "It's impossible to build here" Badass Aztecs: "Hold my pulque"

That eagle must have been like: We do a little trolling.

In a way, the ground in Mexico City is like a ridiculous giant jelly.... the subway is like the fruit inside the jelly and the buildings, depending on whether they were built properly or not, are like fruit or cream, so you have an idea of how the city works with earthquakes.

This isn't racist, this is true

I remember a meme that I saw that was like this: “We will build the city here” “Chief it’s a lake” “Oh it’s going to be dope”

Eagle eating snake on a cactus: "What have I done"

One note: There were 5 lakes not one. Lakes Zumpango, Xaltocan, Texcoco, Chalco and Xochimilco. Very shallow all. During the intense raining season, these lakes would interconnect. The combined surface when full was aprox 1140 square km or 441 square miles

9:42 that blue car is giving me anxiety

Eagle: Finally, I’ve got a good meal. I’ll just lounge on this cactus here and eat it. Years later: This is why Mexico City has been sinking 0.5 meters each year

“Down to the level of Los Angeles” So it’s still terrible

Moctezuma: Aqui mero construirenos nuestra ciudad (We will built our city right here) Chichicota: No mame jefe es un pinche lago (WTF boss it's a fucking lake) Moctezuma: Quedara mamalon (It would be even cooler)

How did you make that thumbnail! So cool!

Flying into Mexico City is still one of the craziest things I've seen. It's pretty much dense buildings as far as you can see. If you ever get the chance to visit, make sure to keep an eye out the window when landing or taking off

The Ancient Aztecs looking at their city now: “look how they’ve massacred my boy”

That traffic shot at 9:34 gave me anxiety 😂

I would peer out that concrete which is blocking water and deposit those in one of the unclaimed lands which you mentioned, and replace that with brick tiles which water can penetrate. If that's impossible, I can create rain water injecting drills in to the ground around feasible points of the city .

Imagine how beautiful it must have been, a city up in the mountains, is an island in a lake. It's a paradox of every degree. I don't want to blame anyone, but destroying a city so beautiful, is cruelty beyond words.

Imagine how beautiful a city that would have been if they didn't fill in the lake. Imagine a city with Venice-like canals in Mexico.

Tenochtitlan was builted just on 194 years, enough to become the most powerful city of the ancient world

I love México City, 500 years after of it's foundation is becoming one of the best cities in the world to live in. That's why many gringos are choosing Mexico City to live and develop their professional carrier today.

A couple days ago me and my dad where talking about Mexico and my father told me how Mexico's capital is slowly going down, at first I didn't really understand what he meant, that is untill I saw this video

Extremely sad that we can't ever see this aztec city

Given there's too much rain: Instead of rebuilding, when they raze old buildings they could replace them with fairly deep minilakes/reservoirs. It would collect rain from the immediate area, and if deep enough little would be wasted in evaporation (to deal with too much rain I guess they would use whatever runoffs are in place already). When there's enough of these ponds, they could be connected underground to merge them into effectively bigger reservoirs, and after a number of them are connected you could choose any one of them to source water in some local area. Eventually the city would be checkered with these lakes, catching a good portion of the rainwater, and some could be connected via surface canals to create waterways, sort of going back to its origins. The tradeoff would be less real estate, a somewhat shrinking city. Reminds me a bit of Tomb raider I architecture. The standing water though might be a problem, how do keep it from getting dirty. Maybe with enough fish it would be fine.

Now I need a video about Acapulco please!

Number one victory royale Yeah, Fortnite, we 'bout to get down (get down) Ten kills on the board right now Just wiped out Tomato Town My friend just got downed I revived him, now we're heading south-bound Now we're in the Pleasant Park streets Look at the map, go to the marked sheet … Take me to your Xbox to play Fortnite …

Funfact: Mexico has a cool tradition of having some hardcore world-class civil engineers, one of the buffest one's Bernardo Quintana, who designed the modern waterworks + anti-sinking master plan for México City back in the 60's, the project is so massive, complex, detailed and elegant that to this day no one dares redesign it, nevermind touch it when planning for future developments, etc.

How much time do you spend making a video like this? Or how much do you pay someone to make it?

Can you talk about the subway system in Mexico City? it's quite an interesting topic!

"Oh look, a delicious snake, i think i'm going to eat it in this comfortable cactus; Hopefully this won't change a civilization's destiny or anything"

I’m an urban designer from Mexico City and I’m impressed on how well informed this video is, you did a great job on your research! Maybe the only two things that you miss were 1. After the 5 years flood, they decided not to move the city because it was culturally, politically and religiously the most important area of the region. 2. The Mexico City water system is the longest (in time) and largest (in size) project that the city and probably the continent has ever had. The construction of the water system in order to drain the lakes started a few years after the Spanish conquer the city in 1521 and it roughly ended until the late 1800s, (almost 100 years after Mexico became independent) took more than 300 years to complete due to the difficult terrain, the technology of the time, the size of the project and other factors.

Whenever I clean or replace my HEPA filters I know what I'm going to find but every time I'm like holy Jesus

Zepp's first two records were are amazing indeed . I'm 76 years old , back then as now I loved jazz but I also loved rock . I loved ASTRAL WEEKS , loved the Dead , SURREALISTIC PILLOW by the Airplane , Hendricks , Stones , Beatles and more and you are correct , Led Zeppelin's first two , especially ... People should check out the video Led Zeppelin , 1970 , Royal Albert Hall , 'tis well worth it ...

Just a small correction: the entirety of Mexico City is not sinking, only the old parts that are located in the former lake bed. I live in the southern part of the city were everything is basically volcanic soil.

Tenochtitlán: **exists** Spanish Conquistadores: It's free real estate

7:47 _..this inefficiency of lake water being raised from the western lands ..can be avoided if small dams are built on the long canals leading east, and windmills with archimede's wheel are placed on those dams.. to keep pumping fresh water uphill, higher and higher, to locals of the Cetate (Ciudad), which has a high thirst grade, due to heat and population density.. wind from plateau will spin the windmills, and turn the spiral helix like core of the cylinder.. thus irigating or providing fresh water for the capital_ ✓

Who would have guessed draining an entire enormous lake would be bad

Your air pollution has to be really bad for the air quality of Los Angeles to be a huge improvement

I believe there is also a very dangerous volcano nearby , like in Naples

I really don't understand why there isn't a concerted attempt to capture the rainfall? We all try to do that here in Australia and there barely is any! A home here can last almost year round for a family of 4 for all water needs other than showers and washing machines, if you have two big tanks on a 3 bedroom house and you're careful with using it

"So we could settle by the river where there's plenty of drinkable water, nice vegetation, and we can build boats for trade and commerce... But that swamp with the eagle killing a snake was pretty fucken METAL tho" - The first aztecs, probably

When a city's position is so good that it had to be nerfed

11:00 Pushing Mexico city somewhere else just isn't really feasible. Patrick: Let me introduce myself.

Porque la construyeron sobre un lago... Un lago.... Un puto lago!

Aztec: ***Sees an Eagle eating a snake*** Aztec: It's free real state

Lake Texcoco was once an ideal place to build a city with the right technology. The climate was great, the reclaimed land was arable, and rainfall was pretty good. Also, it was a very strategic location.

3:04 "Without discovering any practical use for the wheel". Let me tell you that the Aztecs did know the wheel but they did not use it because of their beliefs, they firmly believed in the circle of life, for them the spiritual was of the utmost importance, they were not stupid, they invented 0 and built pyramids on the tops of hills as is the case of Xochimilco, they knew how to move material without the use of the wheel.

This video in a nutshell: Everything was doing fine until the Spanish arrived

So, basically, from minute 3 it's not hard to tell that the problem is not the location but the method used after the conquest to urbanize and build.

Wow, he really took the yellow filter off of Mexico, epic.

As a Mexican, i can confirm Mexico City is like a reverse Jenga game where you build the most stuff before an earthquake destroys Mexico City for the 69th time.

1:25 why are the cars driving the wrong way?

All of this wouldn't have happened if the eagle didn't thought: "Ah this cactus looks perfect to eat my hunted snake in the middle of this lake that isn't inhabited!"

That's why Mexicos flag is so cool, and in my opinion, the most American flag in the Americas. It still has native American iconography on it. Very cool.

¿Alguien sabe de donde es la toma del minuto 7:39?/Does anyone know where the 7:39 minute shot is from?

The other kings thought it was draft to build a castle in a swamp, but I built it all the same! It sank into the swamp....

Nomadic Mexica: What are the chances of seeing an eagle eating a snake in its beak, while perched atop a cactus? Lake Texcoco: *Is That a Challenge?*

It would be cool to see Mexico City in a different timeline made to the Aztec’s design Like Venice but a lot bigger

Seattle gets about the same amount of rain as Chicago. Only it comes mostly as drizzle that takes a long time to come down.

Just as a note, the water is mostly pumped in from the State of Mexico, more specifically, the Toluca Valley, Villa Victoria being one of the major reservoirs, which is actually about 1000ft higher in elevation than the Valley of Mexico where Mexico City lies. It does have to be pumped over the Sierra de las Cruces mountain range that lies between the two valleys.

I thought that it's more of a case of "Mexico City's geography used to be awesome"? It used to have abundant fresh water, food production and a very defensible location.

11:01 who says pushing Mexico City somewhere else isn’t feasible, they just never tried. Patrick’s suggestion to push Bikini Bottom worked.

if they preserve the lake and create a city around it and with a good governance Mexico City will be the most beautiful city in the world today... but no, they choose to destroy the lake...

Man, i live in Mexico City and i can relate to all of the topics this video shows. The worst is the earthquakes and close second is the water shortage. It's very complicated to live here, but as others said before: we had no choice.

Any skyscraper in Mexico City is indeed a “monument.” Difficult it is to build on such land and more difficult to keep structures that high standing.

The Aztec God watching this: that was my plan since the beginning

When the ground water is gone, the land will become a dead desert.

The fact that all the city is sinking BUT the Templo Mayor is NOT, with its mysterious unsinkable building technology, still baffles archeologists.

Native of Mexico City here. I've heard some solutions to the problem. One is that the lake must be revived. At least with some little artificial lakes near the city, and revive some artificial rivers. Which is very hard but not impossible. In the 80s a profesor conducted a proyect for an artificial lake, called Nabor Carrillo and it revived the natural bird migration. If we revive the lake to a degree, we could be restoring the equilibrium and water filtration and giving some breath to the water issue. Which let me tell you, is VERY problematic. You have a city with scarcity of water and with floodings at the same time, caus water can't pass the lake of concrete. Still a beautiful and very lovely city ♥️♥️♥️.