Condesa's growing pains: local residents fight surge of trendy bars and cafes.

It took Oliver Meneses a year to open his new bar in the Condesa. A year spent trying to sidestep corrupt, inept officialdom. His crime: creating jobs and improving the nightlife by opening a world music bar called Yerbabuena.

"It would be naive to think we can have a Soho or a Greenwich Village, but it would be nice to have a wider offering of food and entertainment in a city this size," he said.

Not everyone sees things his way. In the past 10 years, local residents have witnessed an explosion of new businesses that they say are ruining the once-tranquil neighborhood with excessive cars, noise and trash.

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"The conflict is between businessmen and residents and the judge is an administration that is sometimes corrupt. There is a law that says no new bars or restaurants can be built--that's obviously being broken every week," said Alvaro Mejer, a real estate developer, but also an active campaigner against over-development.

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Until 1995, the area--known for its tree-lined streets and parks--had a few famous restaurants, like Seps, and no bars. Nowadays, new nightspots and eateries are spreading like a virus.

The reason for the anarchic development is a classic study in how business is done in Mexico. First, the government passed a law in 1988 banning any new restaurants and bars whatsoever; a law theoretically still in force. But the population was growing as those who fled after the 1985 earthquake were replaced by a younger, hipper generation.

The pent-up demand for bars and restaurants found an escape valve through a maze of conflicting laws and under-the-table payments. It also meant the city lacked the means to oversee orderly development.

Permits For Everyone

Roberto Solares understands the situation better than most. A lawyer, he represents many of the most famous restaurants in the area.

The law "said all existing businesses could continue doing what they were doing back then (1988). Now suddenly everyone has a restaurant permit but I won't tell you how," he said with a slight smile during an interview at his Condesa office.

"After 10 years, everyone is saying no more restaurants, but tomorrow there will be another three and so on."

The fear of many is that what happened to the Zona Rosa will happen again here.

Until the 1970s, the Zona Rosa was a fancy restaurant district home to lawyers and architects, as well as a favored watering hole for politicians. Now it is part tourist trap and part red-light district as politicians either took their eye off the ball or looked the other way for a fee.

"This place could rise and rise unless the threats take it down like the Zona Rosa--that's the advanced stage of the disease," said Mejer. "The threat is real so we have to organize."

Some parts of the neighborhood have had more success at resisting the onslaught than others. The Hipodromo Condesa that surrounds the Parque Mexico has far fewer bars and restaurants. And a newly opened restaurant on the park has to do business with banners of protest hung above its entrance.

Condesa Disease

But the current city government is perhaps the biggest threat of all, despite its reputation for being less corrupt than the ancien regime. Recently the local authorities organized an all-night rave in the Parque Mexico, arguing it had a responsibility to use public spaces for the good of all. The authorities "told us that was the cost of living in the Condesa," said Mejer. "It's about slowly taking spaces. For this government, it's more about showing favor to select groups than maintaining order in the neighborhood."

The area is also under constant siege from groups trying to set up street markets along its green boulevards. The strategy of the "ambulantes," as they are called, is to invade a space and try to occupy it for long enough so that the authorities leave them there as a fait accompli. These groups are politically organized and many have ties to Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, the city mayor.

And when businesses that might add to the area's development try to open, they can find themselves the object of massive protests. Recently Grupo Caliente, a sports betting parlor, tried to open where the Cine Plaza used to be. It was blocked by the argument that such an establishment would undermine safety, as well as the usual moral objections. This cost 100 jobs that could have gone to people trying to set up the aforementioned street markets.

Ironically, it is the poor that pay the highest cost for businesses that don't open, Grupo Caliente is not going to go bankrupt as a result of this. But a barman in the Condesa can make upwards of 3,000 pesos a weekend in tips--more than he can earn in almost any other legal activity. Stop this job creation and people will be forced to find other means of support, such as setting up a quesadilla stand on your corner.

Who Owns The Sidewalk?

The most visible symptom nowadays of the anarchy is there for all to see. Traffic jams on tiny streets, cars parked on the sidewalk and valet parkers with a Mario Andretti complex are the result of poor planning, poor laws and a large number of visitors.

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Nothing can be done. It is illegal to build a parking lot in the neighborhood and apparently that is much harder to get around than the law against bars. "The parking problem will never be solved," said Solares.

There have been attempts to build one underneath the Parque Mexico and on the corner of Alfonso Reyes and Tamaulipas, but both went nowhere. As a result, many residents can no longer park near their houses and it isn't uncommon to arrive home and find a car parked in your driveway.

So residents complain and the authorities, in the classic response of a one-party state, react with high visibility tactics.

In one of the recurrent confrontations with the authorities, police descended on a number of the major restaurants, arrested the valets and took away all the car keys, leaving the restaurants to serve up free cocktails to their angry diners.

Another famous incident was the war of the awnings. All the restaurants had begun to spread out onto the sidewalk, which they didn't have permission to do. So in a one-day sweep, the local authorities came by and threatened to close them all, forcing the restaurants back inside, much to the joy of mothers with trollers and the disabled.

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Then the lawyers waded in on both sides and before long the restaurants had reclaimed their free floor space from the public domain. An arrangement, more flouted than not, was made whereby the businesses agreed to leave enough room for a child to walk by.

The turning point for them all, though, didn't even happen in the Condesa. A fire at the Lobohombo nightclub in the Colonia Cuauhtemoc, which had no decent fire exits and was desperately overcrowded, should have provided the impetus for a more rational approach to urban planning.

Instead, businesses went through a difficult period of indiscriminate closures that cost them money but didn't solve the problem.

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'The Perfect Residential Area'

It's all a far cry from 1902 when the colonia was founded. Up until then, it was a hacienda that first became famous for its bullring (where the Palacio de Hierro now stands) and its racetrack. Amsterdam street is built in an oval shape roughly corresponding to where the horses used to run.

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In 1924, the real estate developers moved in and hired the famous architect Jose Luis Cuevas, who designed the neighborhood as a perfect residential area, with all the necessary services including restaurants and bars.

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Shortly thereafter, the first wave of famous artistic residents began to arrive, including the actor Mario Moreno "Cantinflas" and the composer Agustin Lara. It also attracted many of the Jewish immigrants who fled to Mexico from Europe in the first half of the 20th century. All this helped establish the area as a solid middle-class neighborhood with a touch of bohemian flair.

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In the 1960s and 1970s, cheap rents attracted a wave of artists, who stamped the zone with a modern aura still present today. Then there were two diasporas. The first was caused by the 1985 earthquake, which badly damaged the southern and eastern parts of the Condesa and neighboring Colonia Roma. And then in 1995, the economic crisis sent many younger residents back home to their parents.

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But since then, the area has seen uninterrupted growth. Nowadays, it is almost impossible to rent an apartment for less than 10,000 pesos a month (rooftop rooms can be had for about 3,000 pesos a month, but there's no bathroom so bring your own bucket). And in the last decade, property prices have tripled or more, especially in the area surrounding Parque Mexico.

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This has meant that the artists are being edged out by a new generation of rich, young professionals who are moving into fancy new steel and glass apartments.

However, a certain peak has been reached. And in areas where bars and restaurants have proliferated, property prices have begun to fall. Michoacan street, where Mama Rosa's, the Creperie de la Paix and many others huddle side by side, is an example of that.

"If you have one or two bars on a block then that is OK, but it has become disagreeably above that number," said Mejer.

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After 10 years of riotous growth, the neighborhood is reaching an inflexion point. It will either continue to deteriorate, or some way will be found to preserve its essence.

The choice is between the Zona Rosa or Mexico's version of Greenwich Village.

John Moody has spent 10 years covering Mexico for a variety of international news organizations. He now works as a freelance consultant in the private sector and for NGOs. He can be reached at [e-mail]