Yes: CDMX is noisy

By Jimena de Gortari

In Mexico we tend to defend the most absurd things in everyday life and perhaps this is why we feel it is an affront when visitors dare to criticize any aspect of "our homeland". To this fierce defense of - in my opinion - a bad understanding of being Mexican, we add our conception of urban life and what we must endure - yes, you read that right, endure - when living in a city. This preamble comes to the point because the group chosen - Frontera and Yahritza y su Esencia - to sing at the Mexican fiesta on September 15 had said that Mexico City "I don't like it ... because you can hear the cars and the sirens"; they also dared to pick on the food, "asunto-intocable". Their fans criticized them, in the presidential pulpit they asked to be forgiven but when they played at the party, whistles were present.

As I review the notes and comments on this topic, I think that Mexico City is noisy and practically anyone coming from another city notices it. It is impossible to miss the noise of the permanent braking and starting of those who circulate in the city traffic, the horns of public transportation, the loud music shared by cars, the roar of motorcycles, the trajectories of airplanes on their approach to the airport, the horns of merchants - fixed or itinerant -, the machines of construction sites. We wake up and go to sleep with noise, it is very likely that we do not notice it because we have become accustomed to it, but, even if this has happened, the impact on our health is a reality.