wal mart already ruinedsome small town businesses inside the .Us.
so why to care for those prehistoric silly traditional pseudo catholic brown guys anyways ?
the place was quite deserted, relatively pristine, but local authoritues are corrupt to over their heads.
so the money laundry machine passed over the ruins. a global wishywash
(I wonder if Wal Mart EVER build on any other precolombian historical site in North/latin , meaby in some Navajo pre/serve or colonial british /francolouisian cemetery...
the power of greed vs what else ?
is their god capable to bless the locals ?
it should help them to be blessed with honest politicians.
a probable drugs trafficker will probably be elected in a few months to become the gobernador (literally direction /azimuth keeper) in my local state.
It-s said or rumored at least he offered some 50 million bucks to convince some local party leadership to let him enter the election even if the scandal is near to be apparent but well kept underground. he had the key to success.
in my actual hometown actually between Mexico city and Amecameca were WalMart had also similar trouble with their megaprojects,
the local authority elected a year ago began to cut all existin trees,and erase a large boulevard crossing the center of the town , including trees planted yeras ago, the buldozers came in, took of all vegetation, and created a 60 meters wide avenue. without any help for pedestrians to cross *not even a pedestrain bridge for elderly...or crossing lights.
but the worst is that he began to destroy everything and left all the traffic lanes and existing structures totally unfinished.
for quite a mile long downtown. and after months now it-s rumored a 60 millions void happened in local finances. (Need pictures?)
Do you really believe Wal Mart respected the local LAW (if any applied) in Teotihuacan.?
Situation is the same in many latin or amercian places. the local turf or the .Us economy.
I wonder when they will install a new WallMart discount in Bhagdad
. scale economy is pulling small business out of work and invades market with industrialized food products, poisoning in a smart but slow, quite invisble
way our living, including food, local economy, a.s.o. Under an apparent variety, uniformisation is the rule. In food, apples have a similar size, and even now my childrens have difficulties to eat the ones produced from our orchards, as those are smaller or have small stains... and are not paraffine shiny... so....
quote from thereunder>
Critics note the chains have pushed thousands of smaller, Mexican-run stores out of business, many of them family-owned.
In addition, the leftist Democratic Revolutionary Party has a lawsuit pending that seeks to close the store for alleged construction violations.
wondering> what does the author mean by a leftist democratic ?are progressive democrats or liberal to be considered "leftists", even in the .Us where political parties are relatively insipid when compared to Germany or Italy? I wonder... quote ^
and the following could only happen in Mexico, not in Canada,,China or Britain,
The Bodega Aurrera store sits within the United Nations World Heritage Site for Teotihuacán, the seat of a 2,000- year-old empire where rulers had the streets aligned with the planets and stars.
.................
Preservation groups, including the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, raised no objections to construction, noting that the land is surrounded by commercial development and appeared to contain no valuable artifacts.
let's remember also the size of those malls are huge, not the same size as the dead valley, but compared to local commerce the difference causes
a significative impact on the environmental system.
and what's an appearance ? a proof of what ? if many artifacts and even graves and tombs and....???
were found under the parking lot....
but we certainly will agree the U.N. is a silly futile organisation....or don't we ?
So tell me about "values" to defend... (moral ones not even included) outside of the .Usa ? By who ?
Did the designer of the Aurrera in Teotihuacan consider local historical heritage when showing his plans to local authorities and build such with some respect of local 2000 year old construtions ? Eventually the engineers could use stones from the local sites to spare materials.
there are lots of stones just nearby, even a mountain of... trying to reach the sun or the moon...
P.
From: Howard Ray Lawrence
Subject: Pat: Is Wal-Mart Ruining the Aztec Ruins?
Is Wal-Mart ruining the Aztec ruins?
Photos
Wal-Mart expands in Mexico (Newsday Photo / Letta Tayler)
Nov 8, 2004
Wal-Mart expands in Mexico (Newsday Photo / Letta Tayler)
Nov 8, 2004
Wal-Mart expands in Mexico (Newsday Photo / Letta Tayler)
Nov 8, 2004
Wal-Mart expands in Mexico (Newsday Photo / Letta Tayler)
Nov 8, 2004
Wal-Mart expands in Mexico (Newsday Photo / Letta Tayler)
Nov 8, 2004
Wal-Mart expands in Mexico (Newsday Photo / Letta Tayler)
Nov 8, 2004
By Letta Tayler
Latin America Correspondent
November 7, 2004, 6:45 PM EST
Clad in a long embroidered, native blouse, Emma Ortega knelt at a shrine adorned with skulls and geraniums at Teotihuacán, the ancient pyramids revered by the Aztecs as "the place where men became gods," to utter an unusual prayer.
"Save us from Wal-Mart!" Ortega beseeched the deities of her pre-Hispanic ancestors.
Nearly a half-millennium after the Spaniards captured this fertile valley that contains some of the grandest pyramids on Earth, some residents are battling what they view as a new invader: Wal-Mart, Mexico's largest retailer and private employer, which Thursday opened a discount superstore on the outskirts of the Teotihuacán ruins.
Though many locals welcome the store, which is a Wal-Mart subsidiary called Bodega Aurrera, mounting opposition has turned this wildly popular tourist attraction and the sleepy neighboring village of San Juan Teotihuacán into a national battleground over globalization.
Opponents camp out
For weeks, hundreds of foes in indigenous gowns or face paint, loin cloths and feather headdresses have camped at the entrance to Teotihuacán and outside the National Institute of Anthropology and History 35 miles south in Mexico City.
They pound on drums, stomp Aztec dances and chant, "Out with Wal-Mart!" and "Our sacred city won't be sold to imperialism!"
The opponents, some of whom have launched a hunger strike, contend Wal-Mart is smearing Mexico's indigenous heritage by placing the store in an area of San Juan Teotihuacán that's a mere 11/2 miles from the ruins. Not only do they consider the store an eyesore, they claim valuable artifacts may have been destroyed beneath the alfalfa and cornfields that bulldozers razed to make way for the structure.
Backing them are scores of leading intellectuals and artists, including Laura Esquivel, author of the book and 1992 movie "Like Water for Chocolate," and activist poet Homero Aridjis, who slammed the store as "nailing globalization's stake in the heart of old Mexico." In addition, the leftist Democratic Revolutionary Party has a lawsuit pending that seeks to close the store for alleged construction violations.
Opponents contend far more is in jeopardy than the view from the top of the majestic Pyramid of the Sun, from which the ochre-colored superstore is barely visible amid a jarring commercial development that already encircles the historic ruins.
"This is a fight against all outside forces threatening our cultural heritage," said Ortega, a co-leader of the Teotihuacán Civic Front, which has vowed to continue protests -- including sporadic blockades of the entrance to the pyramids -- until the store closes. "It's about genetically modified corn replacing our pure corn and Halloween replacing our Day of the Dead ceremonies. It's about television programs that impose the U.S. vision of the world."
But most local residents are ecstatic over the store's array of cheap goods and its 185 jobs, desperately needed in a town of 60,000 with few prospects. At Thursday's opening, many shoppers chanted, "Next we want a movie theater!" "We need to live in the present, not the past," said Wal-Mart shopper Lorena Camacho, who used to ride 40 minutes by bus to shop at the nearest supermarket. "Wal-Mart means progress."
The Bodega Aurrera store sits within the United Nations World Heritage Site for Teotihuacán, the seat of a 2,000- year-old empire where rulers had the streets aligned with the planets and stars.
Construction green light
Preservation groups, including the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, raised no objections to construction, noting that the land is surrounded by commercial development and appeared to contain no valuable artifacts. But protesters contend the anthropology institute never properly surveyed the site and that residents found several relics in a dumping area for construction debris once workers began clearing the ground for the store.
Institute spokesman Rubén Regnier adamantly denied those accusations -- though he confirmed the institute was still working on final documents freeing the land for commercial use an hour before Wal-Mart opened. He said the institute had monitored the project constantly, even briefly suspending construction in July because workers had delivered machinery and material without having a government archaeologist present, as required by law.
The institute last month also suspended construction of a Wal-Mart store in an archaeologically protected area of Amecameca, another area outside Mexico City containing pre-Hispanic ruins, after workers began removing soil without supervision.
But Regnier acknowledged that institute archaeologists had discovered several artifacts since construction began in San Juan Teotihuacán. Archaeologists removed 17 tiny clay pots and five graves containing skeletons from the site, and preserved the base of an earthen altar that was found beneath the superstore parking lot, he said.
'Not a cultural blight'
Wal-Mart also denied any improper procedures. "This is not a cultural blight. We have gone the extra mile to do everything right," said Bill Wertz, director of international corporate affairs for Wal-Mart Inc. in the United States.
Mexico has been flooded by U.S.-led chains since the enactment a decade ago of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which dismantled trade barriers between Mexico, the United States and Canada. Leading the pack is Wal-Mart, whose 664 superstores, clothing outlets and restaurants in Mexico employ 106,000 people and registered sales of $12 billion last year.
Critics note the chains have pushed thousands of smaller, Mexican-run stores out of business, many of them family-owned. On a recent day, many merchants braced for a similar fate at the bustling San Juan Teotihuacán market -- the antithesis of a Bodega Aurrera with its shoppers in traditional straw hats, its stray dogs and cats, and its pungent, colliding scents of newly butchered meats and newly picked flowers.
Cheaper, but is it fresh?
"My cheese arrives fresh every day. At Wal-Mart, [cheese will] sit around for a week, but it'll sell at half the price. How can I compete with that?" asked Enrique Gonzalez, 45, who has been selling farm cheeses and sausages at the market since he was a boy, working alongside his father.
Mexico's "globofobicos," as foes of multinationals are known here, scored a victory two years ago when they forced McDonald's to drop plans for a fast-food outlet in the historic central square of Oaxaca, a city famous for its colonial architecture, indigenous influences and culinary specialties such as fried grasshoppers.
But the globofobicos failed to stop the discount giant Costco from razing an historic hotel filled with valuable murals and surrounded by forest to make way for a shopping center last year in the picturesque city of Cuernavaca. After massive protests, Costco agreed to salvage some of the murals and put them in a mini-museum -- inside the asphalt shopping complex.
--
The Design-L list for art and architecture, since 1992...
To subscribe, send mailto:design-l-subscribe-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx.
To signoff, send mailto:design-l-unsubscribe-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx.
Visit archives: http://lists.psu.edu/archives/design-l.html
so why to care for those prehistoric silly traditional pseudo catholic brown guys anyways ?
the place was quite deserted, relatively pristine, but local authoritues are corrupt to over their heads.
so the money laundry machine passed over the ruins. a global wishywash
(I wonder if Wal Mart EVER build on any other precolombian historical site in North/latin , meaby in some Navajo pre/serve or colonial british /francolouisian cemetery...
the power of greed vs what else ?
is their god capable to bless the locals ?
it should help them to be blessed with honest politicians.
a probable drugs trafficker will probably be elected in a few months to become the gobernador (literally direction /azimuth keeper) in my local state.
It-s said or rumored at least he offered some 50 million bucks to convince some local party leadership to let him enter the election even if the scandal is near to be apparent but well kept underground. he had the key to success.
in my actual hometown actually between Mexico city and Amecameca were WalMart had also similar trouble with their megaprojects,
the local authority elected a year ago began to cut all existin trees,and erase a large boulevard crossing the center of the town , including trees planted yeras ago, the buldozers came in, took of all vegetation, and created a 60 meters wide avenue. without any help for pedestrians to cross *not even a pedestrain bridge for elderly...or crossing lights.
but the worst is that he began to destroy everything and left all the traffic lanes and existing structures totally unfinished.
for quite a mile long downtown. and after months now it-s rumored a 60 millions void happened in local finances. (Need pictures?)
Do you really believe Wal Mart respected the local LAW (if any applied) in Teotihuacan.?
Situation is the same in many latin or amercian places. the local turf or the .Us economy.
I wonder when they will install a new WallMart discount in Bhagdad
. scale economy is pulling small business out of work and invades market with industrialized food products, poisoning in a smart but slow, quite invisble
way our living, including food, local economy, a.s.o. Under an apparent variety, uniformisation is the rule. In food, apples have a similar size, and even now my childrens have difficulties to eat the ones produced from our orchards, as those are smaller or have small stains... and are not paraffine shiny... so....
quote from thereunder>
Critics note the chains have pushed thousands of smaller, Mexican-run stores out of business, many of them family-owned.
In addition, the leftist Democratic Revolutionary Party has a lawsuit pending that seeks to close the store for alleged construction violations.
wondering> what does the author mean by a leftist democratic ?are progressive democrats or liberal to be considered "leftists", even in the .Us where political parties are relatively insipid when compared to Germany or Italy? I wonder... quote ^
and the following could only happen in Mexico, not in Canada,,China or Britain,
The Bodega Aurrera store sits within the United Nations World Heritage Site for Teotihuacán, the seat of a 2,000- year-old empire where rulers had the streets aligned with the planets and stars.
.................
Preservation groups, including the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, raised no objections to construction, noting that the land is surrounded by commercial development and appeared to contain no valuable artifacts.
let's remember also the size of those malls are huge, not the same size as the dead valley, but compared to local commerce the difference causes
a significative impact on the environmental system.
and what's an appearance ? a proof of what ? if many artifacts and even graves and tombs and....???
were found under the parking lot....
but we certainly will agree the U.N. is a silly futile organisation....or don't we ?
So tell me about "values" to defend... (moral ones not even included) outside of the .Usa ? By who ?
Did the designer of the Aurrera in Teotihuacan consider local historical heritage when showing his plans to local authorities and build such with some respect of local 2000 year old construtions ? Eventually the engineers could use stones from the local sites to spare materials.
there are lots of stones just nearby, even a mountain of... trying to reach the sun or the moon...
P.
From: Howard Ray Lawrence
Subject: Pat: Is Wal-Mart Ruining the Aztec Ruins?
Is Wal-Mart ruining the Aztec ruins?
Photos
Wal-Mart expands in Mexico (Newsday Photo / Letta Tayler)
Nov 8, 2004
Wal-Mart expands in Mexico (Newsday Photo / Letta Tayler)
Nov 8, 2004
Wal-Mart expands in Mexico (Newsday Photo / Letta Tayler)
Nov 8, 2004
Wal-Mart expands in Mexico (Newsday Photo / Letta Tayler)
Nov 8, 2004
Wal-Mart expands in Mexico (Newsday Photo / Letta Tayler)
Nov 8, 2004
Wal-Mart expands in Mexico (Newsday Photo / Letta Tayler)
Nov 8, 2004
By Letta Tayler
Latin America Correspondent
November 7, 2004, 6:45 PM EST
Clad in a long embroidered, native blouse, Emma Ortega knelt at a shrine adorned with skulls and geraniums at Teotihuacán, the ancient pyramids revered by the Aztecs as "the place where men became gods," to utter an unusual prayer.
"Save us from Wal-Mart!" Ortega beseeched the deities of her pre-Hispanic ancestors.
Nearly a half-millennium after the Spaniards captured this fertile valley that contains some of the grandest pyramids on Earth, some residents are battling what they view as a new invader: Wal-Mart, Mexico's largest retailer and private employer, which Thursday opened a discount superstore on the outskirts of the Teotihuacán ruins.
Though many locals welcome the store, which is a Wal-Mart subsidiary called Bodega Aurrera, mounting opposition has turned this wildly popular tourist attraction and the sleepy neighboring village of San Juan Teotihuacán into a national battleground over globalization.
Opponents camp out
For weeks, hundreds of foes in indigenous gowns or face paint, loin cloths and feather headdresses have camped at the entrance to Teotihuacán and outside the National Institute of Anthropology and History 35 miles south in Mexico City.
They pound on drums, stomp Aztec dances and chant, "Out with Wal-Mart!" and "Our sacred city won't be sold to imperialism!"
The opponents, some of whom have launched a hunger strike, contend Wal-Mart is smearing Mexico's indigenous heritage by placing the store in an area of San Juan Teotihuacán that's a mere 11/2 miles from the ruins. Not only do they consider the store an eyesore, they claim valuable artifacts may have been destroyed beneath the alfalfa and cornfields that bulldozers razed to make way for the structure.
Backing them are scores of leading intellectuals and artists, including Laura Esquivel, author of the book and 1992 movie "Like Water for Chocolate," and activist poet Homero Aridjis, who slammed the store as "nailing globalization's stake in the heart of old Mexico." In addition, the leftist Democratic Revolutionary Party has a lawsuit pending that seeks to close the store for alleged construction violations.
Opponents contend far more is in jeopardy than the view from the top of the majestic Pyramid of the Sun, from which the ochre-colored superstore is barely visible amid a jarring commercial development that already encircles the historic ruins.
"This is a fight against all outside forces threatening our cultural heritage," said Ortega, a co-leader of the Teotihuacán Civic Front, which has vowed to continue protests -- including sporadic blockades of the entrance to the pyramids -- until the store closes. "It's about genetically modified corn replacing our pure corn and Halloween replacing our Day of the Dead ceremonies. It's about television programs that impose the U.S. vision of the world."
But most local residents are ecstatic over the store's array of cheap goods and its 185 jobs, desperately needed in a town of 60,000 with few prospects. At Thursday's opening, many shoppers chanted, "Next we want a movie theater!" "We need to live in the present, not the past," said Wal-Mart shopper Lorena Camacho, who used to ride 40 minutes by bus to shop at the nearest supermarket. "Wal-Mart means progress."
The Bodega Aurrera store sits within the United Nations World Heritage Site for Teotihuacán, the seat of a 2,000- year-old empire where rulers had the streets aligned with the planets and stars.
Construction green light
Preservation groups, including the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, raised no objections to construction, noting that the land is surrounded by commercial development and appeared to contain no valuable artifacts. But protesters contend the anthropology institute never properly surveyed the site and that residents found several relics in a dumping area for construction debris once workers began clearing the ground for the store.
Institute spokesman Rubén Regnier adamantly denied those accusations -- though he confirmed the institute was still working on final documents freeing the land for commercial use an hour before Wal-Mart opened. He said the institute had monitored the project constantly, even briefly suspending construction in July because workers had delivered machinery and material without having a government archaeologist present, as required by law.
The institute last month also suspended construction of a Wal-Mart store in an archaeologically protected area of Amecameca, another area outside Mexico City containing pre-Hispanic ruins, after workers began removing soil without supervision.
But Regnier acknowledged that institute archaeologists had discovered several artifacts since construction began in San Juan Teotihuacán. Archaeologists removed 17 tiny clay pots and five graves containing skeletons from the site, and preserved the base of an earthen altar that was found beneath the superstore parking lot, he said.
'Not a cultural blight'
Wal-Mart also denied any improper procedures. "This is not a cultural blight. We have gone the extra mile to do everything right," said Bill Wertz, director of international corporate affairs for Wal-Mart Inc. in the United States.
Mexico has been flooded by U.S.-led chains since the enactment a decade ago of the North American Free Trade Agreement, which dismantled trade barriers between Mexico, the United States and Canada. Leading the pack is Wal-Mart, whose 664 superstores, clothing outlets and restaurants in Mexico employ 106,000 people and registered sales of $12 billion last year.
Critics note the chains have pushed thousands of smaller, Mexican-run stores out of business, many of them family-owned. On a recent day, many merchants braced for a similar fate at the bustling San Juan Teotihuacán market -- the antithesis of a Bodega Aurrera with its shoppers in traditional straw hats, its stray dogs and cats, and its pungent, colliding scents of newly butchered meats and newly picked flowers.
Cheaper, but is it fresh?
"My cheese arrives fresh every day. At Wal-Mart, [cheese will] sit around for a week, but it'll sell at half the price. How can I compete with that?" asked Enrique Gonzalez, 45, who has been selling farm cheeses and sausages at the market since he was a boy, working alongside his father.
Mexico's "globofobicos," as foes of multinationals are known here, scored a victory two years ago when they forced McDonald's to drop plans for a fast-food outlet in the historic central square of Oaxaca, a city famous for its colonial architecture, indigenous influences and culinary specialties such as fried grasshoppers.
But the globofobicos failed to stop the discount giant Costco from razing an historic hotel filled with valuable murals and surrounded by forest to make way for a shopping center last year in the picturesque city of Cuernavaca. After massive protests, Costco agreed to salvage some of the murals and put them in a mini-museum -- inside the asphalt shopping complex.
--
The Design-L list for art and architecture, since 1992...
To subscribe, send mailto:design-l-subscribe-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx.
To signoff, send mailto:design-l-unsubscribe-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx.
Visit archives: http://lists.psu.edu/archives/design-l.html
