This essay is part of The Great Migration, a series by Lydia Polgreen exploring how people are moving around the world today.
We know one type of migration well.
It’s millions of people from poorer countries traveling mostly to wealthy countries — where they receive, increasingly, a hostile reception — in search of safety and opportunity. But there’s another type of migration taking place the world over. Smaller, quieter yet persistent, it involves people from wealthy countries seeking new lives elsewhere, sometimes in other wealthy places but also in poorer countries that have traditionally sent rather than received migrants.
Perhaps nowhere on the globe are these two waves of migration converging more starkly than in Mexico City, a vast urban agglomeration that has been transformed over the past two decades. It was once known for violent crime, choking haze and broken infrastructure. For decades, many of its ambitious citizens sought to leave, part of a vast tide of migration across the country’s northern border with the United States, a nation many Mexicans saw as a beacon of opportunity.
These days, Mexico City is itself a beacon, drawing millions of visitors from across the world. It is a pulsing center of global culture that rivals any of the great European capitals. Its historic parks and plazas have been reborn. It is a culinary juggernaut, where securing a seat at top restaurants requires ingenuity and once-obscure taco stands garner viral, TikTok-fueled fame.
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The city’s economy has thrived, too, driven by the growth of a wide range of businesses. There are bustling factories, high-tech start-ups, banking and insurance companies and even a rapidly expanding global film and television business, making not just Spanish-language content for Latin American audiences and art films but also big-budget streaming shows and Super Bowl commercials.
People at Parque México in La Condesa, a neighborhood in Mexico City popular with American expatriates.Credit…Luis Antonio Rojas for The New York Times
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