Wednesday, September 17, 2025

Businesses urge residential development to combat Guadalajara insecurity

Business owners in the historic center of Guadalajara have urged municipal authorities to draw up a plan to rehabilitate and repopulate the city’s downtown as part of a strategy to combat insecurity.

The historic center branch of the National Chamber of Commerce (Canaco) argues that the cornerstone of the plan should be the construction of high-rise housing on lots occupied by abandoned non-heritage buildings.

“Families should come and live here to start to create a social fabric,” said Alejandro Salas, the outgoing president of the downtown Canaco branch. “A master plan is needed just for this issue.”

According to the Guadalajara government, there are 624 abandoned or under-utilized dwellings in the center of the municipality as well as 268 vacant lots within the vicinity of Line 3 of the light rail that could be used for high-density housing developments.

In addition to insecurity, Salas said that homelessness and cleanliness of the streets were other issues that need to be addressed in the downtown area of the Jalisco capital.

At an event yesterday to swear in Salas’ successor, the president of the citywide chapter of Canaco issued a plea to local authorities to crack down on the rising number of street vendors in the historic center of the city using the strategy adopted by former mayor turned state Governor Enrique Alfaro.

“The increase of the informal economy concerns us, Mayor Ismael del Toro already knows that and it’s important to get down to work in that respect,” Xavier Orendáin said.

“Nowadays, street vendors have a strategy of setting up in the afternoon and in a lot of cases they bring problems of insecurity, piracy and other serious impacts to the community,” he added.

The new chief of Canaco in the historic center, Víctor Zetter, said there was a painful urban image of abandonment and danger in a lot of the streets” of Guadalajara’s downtown.

He added that residential and commercial areas of the city’s center that were once alive are now dead because “thousands of businesses, offices and residents falsely believed that leaving was progress.”

In response to the issues raised, Mayor del Toro said “our policy for the [historic] center has three pillars: zero tolerance for corruption, enforcing order and compliance with regulations – the [last] two allow us to have a safe city.”

He also said that his government was committed to rehabilitating the historic center following the loss of 2,500 jobs and a negative economic impact on business owners to the tune of an estimated 600 million pesos (US $31.5 million) during the construction of Line 3 of the light rail system.

Source: El Economista (sp), Informador (sp) 

Have something to say? Paid Subscribers get all access to make & read comments.
Fonatur glorieta in Los Cabos

MND Local: Major infrastructure projects reflect growing pains in Los Cabos

0
New airport facilities and new highways are on the way in Los Cabos, as our local news roundup takes a look at what's happening in Baja California Sur.
mural honoring Alicia Matías

A mural at explosion site in CDMX honors Alicia Matías, who died saving her granddaughter

1
The 49-year-old heroine's death has been met with an outpouring of admiration while the nation mourns the 15 victims of last week's gas tanker explosion.
Sheinbaum waving the Mexican flag from the National Palace during the annual Grito de Independencia

In first ‘Grito’ as president, Sheinbaum honors Mexico’s heroines of Independence

12
Josefa Ortiz Téllez Girón, Leona Vicario, Gertrudis Bocanegra and Manuela Molina were all included in Sheinbaum's first presidential Grito, or Cry of Independence.
BETA Version - Powered by Perplexity