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Santa Fe

Santa Fe is, for many international visitors, a string of shopping malls surrounded by a forest of smaller, newer skyscrapers along a highway in the wild west of Mexico City.

This description is in some ways accurate. It describes a conceptual location that many Mexico City residents share. The problem is, as so often in the west of Mexico City, one of geography forced by a rugged and often insurmountable landscape.

The concept of the place today straddles two of the City's alcaldías: Cuajimalpa and its eastern edges, precisely where they meet already rugged Álvaro Obregón. And for those looking to understand this region of Mexico City, a few key historical events stand out.

Vasco de Quiroga, a Spanish priest, began a hospital for the indigenous in today's Pueblo de Santa Fe in 1532. A giant housing development, the Unidad Habitacional Santa Fe, was built in the 1950s, and residents began moving in 1957. But today that housing complex seems at the eastern edge of what could be considered by the same name.

In 1993, the giant Centro Santa Fe shopping complex opened. It carried the name to the western end of this region of the City and helped to solidify our understanding of the area today. The 2017 opening of the La Mexicana Park also helped with the westward migration of the idea of this part of the City. The park provided something of a public center to the Colonia Lomas de Santa Fe in Cuajimalpa.

In 2023, Section 4 of Chapultepec Park opened in a giant former military complex. That old neighborhood, superseded by Chapultepec, had been known as Santa Fe, too.

Today, the Capital Bus tourist bus line runs a seasonal Santa Fe bus route through many of the same shopping and entertainment areas. These are listed below and cover both the historic areas to the east, and the newer even more prominent areas to the west.

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