The first incarnation of Mexico City was as Tenochtitlan during the Aztec Empire. Spanish colonialists, who were expanding their empire though conquests in the Americas, razed the city to create their own seat of power. After gaining independence from Spain in 1821, the Emperor Maximilian enacted a ‘Haussmanization’ of the city, an imposition of the Baroque style as a symbol of imperial power in an alien land. Today this capital city, built on the ruins of a shattered civilization, faces some of the prototypical (and extremely difficult) urban conditions of modern cities: pollution, overpopulation, poverty, and sprawl. Is there a future for Mexico City that solves these problems to serve as a model for addressing the challenges that cities face in our age?