My kids like Mexico City more than Vancouver

I asked my kids why they liked Mexico City better than Vancouver, and all their answers were wrong. Today I’ll share with you what they said, why it was wrong, and what was really going on. But first, let me back up a bit.

This summer I was able to take my family on two vacations. During the first trip we got to visit Vancouver, and in the second trip we visited Mexico City. Both cities are very interesting to me.

Mexico City is fascinating in part because it’s truly huge, comparable to the New York City metro area, but it doesn’t have a Manhattan at the core. Instead, almost-European city center is surrounded by sprawling poly-centric metropolitan area that’s a bit like a fusion of Tokyo and Los Angeles. It’s messy, organic, and vibrant. And because it’s less wealthy than US and Canadian cities, there’s a sense that, if they can do something well, surely we could too.

Vancouver is perhaps the opposite end of the city spectrum. It’s a neat and tidy city that has been ahead of the curve for North American city planning for some time. It’s notable for having an automated metro system and not having urban freeways. The downtown streets have some of the best bicycle infrastructure I’ve seen. In many ways, the city is a living example of North American best-practice applied at scale.

After our visits, I was naturally curious what my family thought about the experience. Their feedback was unanimous: everyone liked Mexico City better than Vancouver.

I wasn’t surprised by that answer (sorry, Vancouver), but I was surprised by the reasons they gave. I listened to them confidently describing the differences they experienced, but the things they said were not true. In some cases, they even had it backwards!

But my kids weren’t confused, and they hadn’t mixed up their memories. They were wrong about cities in the way that all normal people are wrong about cities.

To understand, let’s look at what they said. I’ll illustrate why it’s wrong, then explain what was really going on.

“We walked less”

Mexico is better because there was no far away walking.— S (Age 4)

In other words, he thought we walked less in Mexico City. But that’s incorrect! We walked quite a bit more in Mexico City.

Our longest walk in Vancouver (about 1 mile):

Our longest walk in Mexico City (about 1.6 miles):

In Vancouver we had a car, and while we did “stroll” a lot through the city, we also drove ourselves or Ubered frequently, because the kids were complaining about the walking. In Mexico City we also Ubered for a few long hauls, but we walked a lot more overall, but the kids didn’t complain very much.

“Mexico City was ‘greener’“

I think why I didn’t like too much about Vancouver is, I think it was kind of a bit less pretty. I liked all the plants in Mexico City, except the poky ones.— K (Age 7)

With a bit of follow up, she felt that Mexico City was significantly more “green” than Vancouver, but I don’t think that’s true.

Vancouver

Mexico City

Just looking at the places we walked, both cities had consistent street trees. Vancouver had much more consistent planters and landscaping around its buildings, while Mexico City had more small parks and planted medians. But overall, both cities feel very green.

“We did more stuff in Mexico City“

I liked Mexico City better because we did more stuff and better stuff, not to mention the hotel was a lot nicer. Liked the market in Vancouver.— S (Age 10)

She’s right that the hotel in Vancouver was kind of a bust, but that’s not the city’s fault, so let’s ignore that part. She’s wrong about where we “did more stuff.”

Vancouver

In Vancouver, we visited Stanley Park, Sunset Beach, Gastown, the Main Library, BC Place and the festival setup for the World Cup, Granville Island, and the Capilano Suspension Bridge Park.

Mexico City

In Mexico City we visited Parque México, the Chapultepec Zoo, and Coyoacán.

All four kids agreed that Capilano (in Vancouver) was the best single thing we did all summer. Overall I would say we did more “stuff” in Vancouver, and more “strolling around” in Mexico City.

“Mexico City was less crowded”

Vancouver was like more urban and… well it’s not like Mexico City isn’t a city, but, it was less crowded and in Vancouver it was very, very crowded on the streets (although not in the restaurants).— Z (Age 12)

I think you’d be hard-pressed to argue Vancouver is more urban than Mexico City, and Vancouver was objectively less crowded at every point in our journey.

Vancouver

Mexico City

What were my kids actually sensing?

I think my family members each sensed that there was something they liked better in Mexico City, and when I asked them to name it they reached for things they could concretely remember and assigned those things explanatory power. But the things they reached for were arguably incorrect. What’s going on?

My wife’s take was very simple:

Mexico City was more interesting.

She’s right. And the reason Mexico City is more interesting than Vancouver is that it’s fine-grained.The parcels are smaller, so the buildings are narrower, and there are more buildings on any given block. The buildings are owned by different people who do different things with them, which means there’s just a lot more variety on any given stretch of sidewalk.

explained how this works really well in a :

When we experience a dense, fine-grained neighborhood, we don’t just experience the facades. We are experiencing a place made up of many owners, many household types, many businesses, many buildings, and many independent decisions. A fine-grained neighborhood can capture a more granular picture of a people and society over time, and we like that.

You can see the difference between Vancouver and Mexico City just looking at the map. Here are two Google Maps snapshots (at the same scale) of central areas of the each city, typical of where we spent time. You can see that while the streets and blocks are not that different, the buildings are extremely different.

In Mexico City, every block is chopped into dozens of little parcels, each one with a different building.

In Vancouver, every block is a tidy line of 4-6 large, monolithic buildings. Which means that what you’re walking past looks and feels like this:

Whereas walking around Mexico City feels more like this:

recently shared a pithy summary of this effect :

In short, the fine-grained variety of Mexico City made it more interesting than Vancouver. As my kids walked around Mexico City they noticed the difference without understanding what they were noticing. When they tried to explain it, they offered things they did notice instead.

• They incorrectly thought we walked less in Mexico City because he was less bored.(Walking in Mexico City was more interesting.)
• They thought it was “greener” because the plants in Mexico City were more interesting. A lot of the “green” in Vancouver was grass, and grass doesn’t count! It’s boring.
• They thought we did more and better stuff — actually we didn’t have to do as much stuff, because it was more interesting just to walk around.

Finally, why did my oldest think Mexico City was less crowded when it was certainly morecrowded? My best guess is that she was perceiving social friction more than actual congestion.

In Vancouver there are a lot of narrow sidewalks. In many cases we had the sidewalk to ourselves for an entire block at a time, but we basically had to walk single-file, or at most two-by-two. We didn’t pass many other people, but when we did it was awkward, and meant stepping off the sidewalk in some cases.

In Mexico City the sidewalks were wider and it didn’t require any effort for us to stick together as a group. We were passing people all the time, but it was like being inside a busy building, you just sort of wade through the crowd and people flow around each other. It was never awkward.

Closing Thoughts

If you’d like everyone to love your neighborhood, town, or city, you should consider allowing, and even encouraging, narrower lots and smaller parcels — and make sure the sidewalks are wide enough! Some related reading if you want to dig deeper into these ideas:

• I’ve written previously about how to make a great street, including having wide enough sidewalks, and not having access points too far apart.
• has suggested cities should consider a 30-foot maximum lot width(with an option to split those lots in half)
• has pointed out that when we allow smaller buildings we get tiny businesses that are cheaper for customers.
• And just wrote a deep dive on fine-grained buildings, how cities block them, and how to bring them back.

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