Middle class is booming in a changing Mexico

[T_R_Oglodyte]

Middle class is booming in a changing Mexico

QUERÉTARO, Mexico — A wary but tenacious middle class is fast becoming the majority in Mexico, breaking down the rich-poor divide in a demographic transformation that has far-reaching implications here and in the United States.

Although many Mexicans and their neighbors to the north still imagine a country of downtrodden masses dominated by a wealthy elite, the swelling ranks of the middle class are crowding new Wal-Marts, driving Nissan sedans and maxing out their Banamex credit cards.

"As hard as it is for many of us to accept, Mexico is now a middle-class country, which means we don't have any excuse anymore. We have to start acting like a middle-class country," said Luis de la Calle, an economist, former undersecretary of trade in the Mexican government and the co-author of a new report called "Mexico: A Middle Class Society, Poor No More, Developed Not Yet."

The new stereotype is no longer an illegal immigrant hustling for day labor outside a Home Depot in Phoenix. The new Mexican is the overscheduled soccer dad shopping for a barbecue grill at a Home Depot in booming cities like Querétaro.

And Mexico's growing economic center will be decisive in the presidential election in July, say political analysts from all three major parties.

Mexico's middle class thrives here in the country's central highlands, in buzzing industrial cities that bear little resemblance to the violent border towns of the Rio Grande or tourist magnets such as Cancún.

In Querétaro, a sunny, fastidious state capital of a million residents two hours north of Mexico City, new subdivisions and industrial parks are sprouting across the cactus lands, welcoming waves of aspiring Mexican families drawn by jobs and safe neighborhoods.

Some of the newcomers have fled the drug violence of cities farther north, such as Monterrey, where middle-class Mexicans feel increasingly vulnerable to kidnappers, extortionists and random killings.

By comparison, Querétaro is a haven of relative calm. The homicide rate here is on par with Wisconsin, about 3.2 per 100,000 residents.

 

[easyrider]

Indeed. The many new homes built in new subdivisions arround resort towns are a result of a middle class.