Mexico City

By and large, people have the wrong idea about Mexico City. To many the very name summons two words: crime and pollution. No doubt there are areas to be avoided, but the Distrito Federal is packed to the gills with decent people who will usually look out for one another, and for you. Pollution summons visions of unwalkable, megahighway-filled cities jammed with cars, which this is not. The smog is real: the Aztecs built their city of Tenochtitlan in a high (7,347 feet) valley that often waits days for the air to move. But there are a little over 2.5 million cars and buses in the city, just more than one for every 10 of 20-million-something inhabitants (reports vary). Truth is, those living in the capital do so more sustainably than most people in the industrialized world, at high—yet comfortable—densities (though not in high-rises), and move mostly by foot and public transit. (If you are tempted to drive this Gordian knot of merged villages, well, we would recommend that you not.) More »