INTRODUCTION
Towns and cities have always been at the core of Latin America's economic, political, social, and cultural development (Sargent 1993, 172). As true as that statement may be, there are few recent studies that interpret the urban morphology of the region's many cities (Sargent 1974; Griffin and Ford 1980), that differentiate among regional variations in cities (Herzog 1990; Ward 1991), or that define systems of cities within a region (Unikel 1976; Scott 1982). Presently, there is a need to better assess contemporary urban patterns within Latin America, both individual as well as collectives of cities. In a recent work, it has been asserted that the border cities represent a type of urban settlement in Mexico which may suggest an example of a system of cities in the northern subregion of that country (Arreola and Curtis 1993, 3-9).

This research examines Chihuahua city, the capital of Chihuahua state. It is especially concerned with the changing morphology and landscape character of the city, and how it compares with other Mexican cities as well as with United States cities. Our discussion examines first the historical development of the city to establish the geographic framework of the place and to reveal some of the processes that have operated to create its present urban form. The discussion then turns to an assessment of the contemporary morphology of Chihuahua city, its commercial, industrial, and residential landscapes. The research contributes to our understanding of the regional variation that is said to exist for Mexico (Crowley and Griffin 1989, 339-364), and refines our appreciation ofthe role of cities in regional personality. [end p. 73]

FOUNDING AND EARLY DEVELOPMENT
Ciudad Chihuahua is the capital of Chihuahua. It is situated at 4700 feet elevation close to the geographic center of the state, some 1000 feet higher than Ciudad Juarez, 233 miles to its north and 1000 feet lower than Parral, 186 miles to its south. The settlement is younger than several other major places in the region including Durango founded in 1563 and Parral settled in 1631 (Trautmann 1986, 243). Even Paso del Norte, present Ciudad Juarez, was founded one half century earlier than Chihuahua, in 1659 (Martinez 1978, 9).

The founding of the settlement resulted from the silver strike at nearby Santa Eulalia, present Aquiles Serdan, some 15 miles east. Because Santa Eulalia lacked a reliable water supply, a second community, the Real San Francisco de Cuellar, was organized in 1709 (Lozano 1959, 3). The site was near the junction of the Chuviscar and Sacramento Rivers and met the requirements of the royal ordinances of 1573 since the town was in a defensible location, was near a river and wooded area, and offered sufficient surrounding pasturelands (Jones 1988, 120).

In 1718 the community was elevated to a villa and renamed officially San Felipe el Real de Chihuahua (Lozano 1959, 4). The town was the residential and commercial complement to Santa Eulalia and its population hovered around 2000 in the 1740s (Gerhard 1982, 200). Chihuahua continued as the pivot of the local mining district, and became something of a regional center after most of the Parral mines were closed in the middle of the eighteenth century (Jones 1988, 124).

In 1823 Chihuahua was elevated to the status of ciudad (Lozano 1959, 5). For the next two decades, Chihuahua profited from its location on the receiving end of several trading circuits that linked it to the United. States. The most famous and perhaps influential of these connections was the Santa Fe trail via Paso del Norte; the other trade link was the so-called Chihuahua road that connected the city to San Antonio, Texas by way of the Rio Grande settlements of La Junta, present Ojinaga, Chihuahua and Presidio, Texas (Moorhead 1958; Swift 1988).

During the first three quarters of the nineteenth century, Chihuahua's population likely did not exceed 15,000 residents (Table 1). Its form mirrored the classic Spanish colonial grid of streets focused upon a main plaza flanked by a towering cathedral and surrounding administrative buildings (Figure 1). The town was extremely compact, consisting in 1860 of some dozen or so irregular blocks oriented slightly east of true north. The built area was wedged between the northeast flowing Rio Chuviscar before it abruptly turns at its confluence with the Rio Sacramento, and the cerro, or hill, called Santa Rosa (Figure 2). Houses were tightly organized around and away from the plaza and were mainly one story adobe construction. Most conformed to the [end p. 74]traditional pattern of rooms built around a patio with thick walls that aligned close to the street (Moorhead 1958,117). At the south side of town was an alameda or public walk shaded by rows of cottonwoods (Paseo Simon Bolfvar, today) and at its end the plaza de toros, which merchant traders sometimes used as a wagon yard. The city was well-watered by the Rio Chuviscar on its northwest side, feeding truck farms along the flood plain, and by a stone aqueduct on the south; irrigated fields were prominent on the city's southern outskirts (Bercheski 1860).

In 1884, the Mexican Central Railroad reached the city and was connected to Ciudad Juarez on the border in that same year. In 1899, a second railroad, the present Chihuahua al Pacífico, was constructed from the southern edge of the city west toward ranching lands on the periphery of the Sierra Madre Occidental; this same line was extended east toward Ojinaga in 1912 (Figure 2). (This railroad was not formally linked to Ojinaga on the Rio Grande until 1930, and not constructed west through to Los Mochis near the Gulf of California until 1961.) These developments allowed Chihuahua to function as a market node for cattle and later mining exports to the United States, and also kept the city's elite in touch with national affairs in Mexico City (Wasserman 1984).

During the 1890s, a single family, the Luis Terrazas, came to dominate economic and political affairs in the city. The Terrazas family invested heavily in local industry, plowing profits from cattle into meat packing, flour milling, sugar beet refining, and brewing. The family ran the local utilities as well as the city's inter-urban system. Because the Terrazas controlled banking as well as state and local government, they directed the development of considerable land on the city's periphery and profited handsomely from urban expansion (Wasserman 1984, 47). By 1900, the city's population had surpassed 30,000 residents, a doubling from twenty-five years earlier (Table 1).

Nevertheless, Chihuahua was still a remarkably compact place as indicated by the incremental expansion of the small core area in 1900 (Figure 2). The extent of the built area was perhaps three miles long by one mile deep along the east bank of the Rio Chuviscar. The city then did not extend up to the river because of flooding, and west of the Río Chuviscar was mostly open country.

Three outliers marked the urban periphery of the city in 1900 (Figure 2). To the immediate south and west of the Chuviscar-Sacramento confluence and west of the Chuviscar were the rail shops and yards of the Mexican Central. A cluster of industries were attracted to this site, benefiting from proximity to water as well as transportation access. This industrial node evolved into working-class neighborhoods including Colonias Santo Nino and Felipe Angeles. Today, the district remains one of the more colorful of the city with its company town-like ambiance that includes a tight streetscape of masonry brick houses on tiny lots that open to narrow backyards. A second outlier, although much smaller, is the node to the east of the urban core along the Mexican Central in the gap created by the Rio Chuviscar. This is La Concordia, a textile company town financed and built in 1890 by the Terrazas family (Wasserman 1984, 59). The mill has closed but the town survives as an independent suburb today. The third ex-urb is five miles northeast of the urban core. This is the Franciscan mission and Indian community of Nombre de Dios, founded in 1697, before the city,[end p. 75] and situated between the Rfo Sacramento and the Mexican Central Railroad line (Jones 1988, 119).

After 1900, the Terrazas family shared political and economic control of the city with foreign interests (chiefly American) that were given concessions by Mexican president Porfirio Dfaz, especially in mining and transportation. For example, in 1905, the Guggenheims persuaded Dfaz to allow them to build the American Smelting and Refining Company (ASARCO) town of Avalos, east of the city along the Mexican Central Railroad (Wasserman 1984, 88). The Terrazas clan was able to maintain influence in Chihuahua's economy despite the intrusion of outsiders because they acted as brokers or intermediaries between foreign interests and the Mexican national government. The land on which the Guggenheims built the company town of Avalos belonged to the Terrazas who profited considerably in its sale. Moreover, Terrazas family enterprises still employed more people in Chihuahua than any single foreign company so that its bond to Chihuahuense survived the Revolution that toppled foreign business interests in the city (Wasserman 1984, 47).

In the next half century, Chihuahua expanded considerably to its north and northwest but also pushed south and east (Figure 2). Several elite residential streets emerged during this period, especially along a streetcar line that followed Avenida Benito Juárez east of the main plaza, and Paseo Simón Bolívar near Lerdo Park (Martínez 1934, 15-17) (see Figure 3). The elite Avenida Francisco Zarco neighborhood, a turn of the century automobile residential district, was developed on the southern edge of the city beyond the present central city frame, between the Río Chuviscar and the Chihuahua al Pacífico Railroad (Caballero B., 1960, 98-102). More modest residential development spread north and east. By 1930, Chihuahua's population climbed to almost 46,000 (Table 1). The old colonial camino real (Mexico Highway 45, today) that linked Chihuahua to Ciudad Juarez was paved between 1933 and 1948, and its extension south to Durango came one year later (Martinez 1934, 7; Lister and Lister 1966, 312). During the 1950s, the city topped 100,000, but ironically, in that decade was surpassed in population by Ciudad Juarez which grew to over 250,000 (Martinez 1978, 158). Spurred by high birth rates and in-migration, Chihuahua pushed past one-quarter million during the decade of the 1960s, but Ciudad Juárez continued to outpace the capital city (Table 1; Unikel 1976: Cuadro I-A3; Zoomers 1986).

In 1960 the urban area extended east up to and beyond the Cerros Coronel and Santa Rosa, and spilled south across the Chihuahua al Pacífico Railroad tracks that had previously marked the city's outskirts (Figure 2). Residential and commercial landscapes reached southwest of the 1900 core along the bank of the Río Chuviscar --which had recently been channelized-- and pushed west of the river beyond the first industrial outlier. It was especially[end p. 76] during this period of growth that the urban area stretched north-northwest into previously agricultural land along the Mexican Central Railroad corridor to Nombre de Dios, creating a district of mixed heavy industry and lower quality housing. High quality housing emerged as growth spurted west of the Río Chuviscar where close-in auto suburbs like El Mirador, and El Campestre, an outlier on the western periphery, were developed (Anchondo 1956) (Figure 2).

In the last thirty years, Chihuahua has almost doubled in area and the number of subdivisions --colonias and fraccionamientos-- has tripled from 22 to 66 (see Planos cited as sources in Figure 2). According to the 1990 Mexican census, the city counted 516,153 residents (Table 1). It grew by nearly 131,000 people between 1980 and 1990, an increase of 34 percent. Like most of the Mexican border cities, including Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua appears to be growing chiefly by natural increase rather than in-migration (Arreola and Curtis 1993, 30). However, unlike the border cities, in every decade since 1940, Chihuahua has grown more by natural increase than by migration (Unikel 1976: Cuadro I-A3). In 1980 and 1990, less than 50,000 people resided in Chihuahua who lived outside of the city in a different state five years previously. In rank order the greatest numbers came each year from the Distrito Federal, Durango, and Coahuila (Mexico, Censo General 1983: Tomo 8, Cuadro 14, 125; Censo General 1991b: Tomo I, Cuadro 5, 74). This suggests that Ciudad Chihuahua is still strongly linked to its hinterland of neighboring northern states as well as the capital. Recently, a trans-Sierra Madre road --Mexico Highway 16-- was paved between Chihuahua City and Hermosillo, Sonora to the west (Arizona Republic 1992:T2).

CONTEMPORARY URBAN MORPHOLOGY AND LANDSCAPES
Urban landscape now extends in all directions away from the traditional core, except to the northeast where steep mountains, the Sierra de Nombre de Dios and Cerros Colorados, have blocked further construction. At its maximum, the built-up area currently sprawls for nearly eleven miles from north-northwest to south-southeast and for about eight miles from east to west. Skirting the city on its western, northern, and southern flanks and serving, at least temporarily, as its outer edge is a ring highway or periférico (Figure 2). This loop not only allows traffic to bypass the city, but also has greatly increased access to the urban fringe. This has served to accelerate decentralized growth, including the bulk of higher quality housing and commercial development as well as maquiladora industrial parks, which have been pulled especially north and west. But even here, mixed land uses and variations in housing quality make for a diverse contemporary pattern. In order to systematically assess Chihuahua's urban morphology and landscape character, in January of 1992 a city-wide landuse survey was conducted. Although the survey focused primarily on residential structure, the spatial and landscape characteristics of both commercial and industrial areas were also examined.

Commercial Landscapes
Typical of Latin American city structure that has evolved largely since the Second World War, distinctions can be drawn between commercial development in the urban center and along the major thoroughfares or "spines" (Griffin and Ford 1980, 405-409). Despite the centrifugal drift of commercial and institutional activities to more peripheral locations, the central business district (CBD) or el centro remains an important and vibrant node of business, government, and cultural attractions; it also houses wholesale and manufacturing activities, and has a significant residential component. Consistent with studies that have examined landuse differentiation within American CBDs, two multifunctional subdistricts --a core and a frame-- can be identified (Horwood and Boyce 1959). Based on the intensity and types of landuses, we delimited a CBD core of approximately fifty blocks. Aligned in a near north-south configuration, the core averaged only two to four blocks wide and was about fifteen blocks long (Figure 3).

This compact area of intensive land use is characterized by retail and service shops, government and general offices, banks, hotels, and restaurants. In traditional fashion, it also contains the city's mercado central, a large and bustling maze of shops and stalls located off Avenida Juarez on the core's northern edge. In a concession to modernity, however, a three-block, open-air pedestrian mall has been developed on Calle Libertad, one block east of Avenida Juárez, near the western center of the core. [end p. 77]

Unlike the Mexican border cities, Chihuahua's core lacks a distinguishable tourist district (Arreola and Curtis 1993, 77-118). Although not without its attractions and historical sites, the city has failed to develop as a significant foreign tourist destination, except as a terminal point for train trips through la Barranca del Cobre in the western Sierra Madre (Wampler 1969; Los Angeles Times 1986; Noble, Spitzer, and Wayne 1989, 716).

Designed in the pre-automobile era for pedestrian use, the blocks within the core, which are arranged in a modified gridiron pattern, are comparatively small, irregular shaped, and most of the streets are narrow. Although the streets have been converted to one-ways, the core's vitality, coupled with its role as the hub of the public transit network, has contributed to serious traffic congestion and a lack of parking space. As it has for over 200 years, the core focuses on the city's plaza principal (Plaza de la Constitución), which is laid out in a garden-park design around a central kiosco or bandstand, and is flanked by the main cathedral and government buildings. Undoubtedly it remains the most popular and attractive public gathering space in the urban center, and continues as the fulcrum of CBD commercial activity. Such stability is in marked contrast to the CBDs of North American cities, where the core in general and the peak land value intersection in particular have tended to migrate over time (Murphy and Vance 1954; Ford 1991, 24). In further contrast to North American CBDs for cities of this size, Chihuahua's core displays little vertical intensification of landuses. Instead, the city's low-profile skyline is dominated by two- to four-storey buildings; there are only a handful of even mid-rise structures ranging between ten and fifteen storeys, mainly prestige banks and hotels concentrated around the main plaza (Figure 4). [end p. 78]

Despite its age and the persistence of a permanent consensus core, few noteworthy historic structures have survived in the area, save the twin-towered baroque cathedral, and a few nineteenth century neocolonial government buildings, such as the Palacio del Gobierno and the Palacio Federal. Moreover, there is little visible evidence of either significant preservation or renovation. The overall impression of the core is of a relative modern and prosperous place. Yet, the lack of new construction and of redevelopment as well as signs of physical neglect suggest that it may be losing its traditional commercial and institutional supremacy to newer, dynamic districts which have emerged west of the Río Chuviscar.

The surrounding urban frame is about five times larger than the core (Figure 3). It is an area of semi-intensive landuse. Although commercial activities are found throughout, and dominate in the vicinity of the core and along the major streets, the frame is characterized by mixed land uses, including residential. Functional sub-districts are discernible, but land uses are probably less segregated than in North American urban centers, due in part to a lack of zoning regulations. A broad distinction in land use patterns can be drawn between those sections of the frame that lie west and east of the core.

In the former, where the terrain slumps toward the river, the frame includes low-quality housing but non-residential uses are most prominent. Foremost among these include light or "cottage" manufacturing, wholesaling, and warehousing. Commercial activities focus mainly on low-order retail and service outlets; it also supports a busy periodic street market that connects with shopping in the core. Small, inexpensive hotels, inns, and restaurants are numerous, especially around the central bus depot in the extreme west of the area adjacent the river. Nearby is a small zona de tolerancia or red-light district (Curtis and Arreola 1991). Typical of marginal inner-city areas with such landuses, the built environment affects a rundown ,b>[end p. 79] appearance, with many older, deteriorating structures and it suffers from a general lack of public infrastructure maintenance. In both functional and aesthetic ways, it is analogous to the North American zone of discard (Hartshorn 1992, 334).

East of the core, the frame becomes more residential. Since the frame encompasses much of the historic city, it includes the range of older housing from low- to high-quality. Although the pattern is mixed, the northeastern third of the frame contains the greatest concentration of low-quality housing, whereas middle-quality housing predominates in the central and southeastern sections. Only one small cluster of high-quality housing remains. No more than three or four blocks in size, it is located immediately north of Lerdo Park, straddling Paseo Bolívar. It dates from the late nineteenth century when the park was founded and the electric streetcar system pushed into the area (Larrea Cordero 1882; Chihuahua: Imagen y Destino 1984). The enclave's most impressive structure, and an important city landmark, is Quinta Gameros, a French Second Empire neoclassical mansion, which has been converted into a regional museum. Just north of the core on Avenida Juárez, a second, formerly elite neighborhood has evolved into one of the city's premier restaurant-entertainment districts. It, too, dates from the beginning of the century and the establishment in 1899 of the Cervecería de Chihuahua, a brewery owned by the Terrazas family. In recent years, the defunct brewery and several of the larger homes have been adapted to new uses, mainly as upscale restaurant-bars, including the decidedly American-style Chihuahua Charlie's.

Auto-oriented commercial strips complement as well as contrast with the function and landscape character of the pedestrian-focused urban center. Over the last two decades, the bulk of commercial growth within the city has occurred along these expanding arteries; collectively, they now rival if not exceed the CBD in commercial importance. The occurrence and location of these corridors, however, reflects not only topographical considerations but also the city's social geography (Figure 5). Toward the northeast and to a lesser extent the area immediately east of the CBD they are blocked by mountains and several steep-sided cerros. Although they emanate from the CBD in several directions, strips are much more extensively developed west of the Río Chuviscar. This corresponds to the prevailing direction of urban growth since the 1960s including the suburbanization of middle- and upper-income groups (see Figure 2). The relatively older and poorer areas east and south of the river and CBD are neither as conveniently linked to the city center nor as well-served commercially by strips.

Connecting with the heart of the CBD, Avenida Universidad is the principal "spine." Other important commercial streets branch from it, including Avenida División del Norte, Avenida Fernando de Borja-Avenida Pascual Orozco, and Avenida de las Américas. Meandering off Avenida de las Américas toward the southwest is Antonio Ortíz Mena, the second most prominent commercial strip on the city's west side. With the completion in 1992 of a new bridge over the Río Chuviscar, Avenida Technológica now provides enhanced access to the CBD. Along its central and northwestern sections, where it [end p. 80] becomes Mexico Highway 45, it has developed many newer commercial functions to complement the existing industrial and highway-oriented establishments.

The strips display considerable variation in respect to the types of commercial establishments as well as in their landscape character. In general, distinctions can be drawn between strips (or at least sections of strips) that support businesses which specialize in high-order goods and services and those where low-order commercial outlets predominate. The latter, which are characteristic of strips east of the river but also includes the southern portion of Avenida Technologico, represents the traditional pattern where unplanned shops and stores evolved over time along principal traffic ribbons. They serve a local clientele but also commonly offer highway-oriented goods and services. These outlets are typically small, built flush to the sidewalk and do not provide on-premise parking. Most often they are independent, family-run businesses, although chain convenience stores, such as OXXO, have penetrated these strips in recent years.

By contrast, commercial establishments on the high-order spines cater to a middle-income, automobile-owning, city-wide clientele. Typical retail activities include large, space-consumptive businesses such as automobile dealerships, furniture showrooms, and chain supermarket-discount stores like Futurama, La Galatea and Blanco. Banks, chain restaurants, nightclubs, and major motels-hotels also are common. Although mini-malls (complete with pizza parlors, frozen yogurt shops, and video-rental outlets) are found on several of these strips, the city has only one full-scale enclosed mall, Plaza Galerias on Antonio Ortiz Mena. Here North American commercial design and architectural idioms are the standard. Designed in modern and even postmodern styles, these free-standing stores are generally set-back from the street and provide ample free parking. The streets themselves are often broad, divided, and curbed and may have a tree-lined center median; they often are paralleled by access roads. There also are several glorietas, or traffic circles, especially at major intersections on Avenida Universidad. These landscaped circles house commemorative elements, including statues, such as the prominent one of Francisco "Pancho" Villa on Avenida Universidad at División del Norte.

Industrial Landscapes
Equally as strong contrasts exist between the older and newer industrial quarters. The traditional industrial district within the city proper is a sector-shaped wedge that fans-out toward the north from the CBD, following the tracks of the Mexican Central Railroad (Figure 5). It is framed on the east by the Rio Sacramento, and on the west by Avenida Technologico. This area continues to serve an important, if relatively declining, industrial function. It focuses primarily on the manufacture of heavy products, including iron and steel as well as cement and other construction materials. The area also supports a thermoelectric generating plant, petroleum storage and distribution facilities, and milling and food processing operations. In recent years, recycling has become an important and growing activity. Befitting its historic orientation toward transportation, the quarter includes extensive railroad facilities and yards as well as areas devoted to trucking. Although not numerous or especially large, there are several relatively older-type maquiladoras. The most notable is the Essex facility. On the southwest, the quarter is bordered by the Regional Technological Institute, a fitting institutional land use to complement this sprawling, gritty, traditional industrial corridor.

Of the two historically-significant outlying industrial nodes of La Concordia and Avalos, only the latter remains in production. Located off Highway 45 on the extreme eastern margins of the city (Figure 5), Avalos has retained the appearance of an American-style company town, dominated by the towering smokestack of the old ASARCO smelter, still in operation. In addition to the smelting of various ores, the facility manufactures wires and circuits. In characteristic company-town fashion, it has its own hospital, schools, stores, and segregated housing that is divided between areas for workers and a fenced, gate-guarded section for company executives and engineers. Seemingly the only concession to Mexican culture is the town's plaza. It is an unusual industrial space that evokes a curious sense of being out of synch with both time and place.

New industrial zones, including maquiladora complexes, have emerged in several locations around the greater metropolitan area. For the most part, they are situated on the edges of the city, either adjacent to or within close proximity of major highways or[end p. 81] the perifericos, a locational pattern which resembles that found in the border cities (Arreola and Curtis, 1993, 69). East of the CBD and beyond the Cerros Coronel and Santa Rosa, for example, a newer industrial corridor has developed along the old Chihuahua al Pacífico Railroad corridor and Mexico Highway 16 leading to the airport. It focuses on pulp and paper milling, agricultural processing, and includes storage and distribution facilities. Individual maquiladora assembly plants are located just to the west and south of the corridor along Highway 45, including prominently the A.C. Nielsen Company.

Most of the city's 60 maquiladoras, however, which employ the lion's share of Chihuahua's 46,000 industrial workers --about one-quarter of the active labor force-- are located west of the Río Chuviscar (Mexico. Censo General 1991b: Tomo II, Cuadro 31, 688). The greatest number of these are concentrated in three large industrial parks, including Las Américas and El Saucito, both located on the far northwest of the city along the periférico; the other is El Complejo, situated beyond the northern limits of the built-up area off Highway 45 connecting with Ciudad Juárez (Figure 5). Just south of El Complejo industrial park is the sprawling Ford Motor Company, the single largest maquiladora in the city. It recently underwent a $400 million retooling, and is a state-of-the-art facility where four-cylinder engines are assembled (New York Times 1993, 14).

In landuse aesthetics, these industrial parks mirror their North American counterparts, and provide stark contrasts with more traditional Mexican industrial spaces. Typically, the property is fenced and is accessible via a grand, gate-guarded entrance. Streets are laid out in a simple grid pattern that often incorporates cul-de-sacs. The streets themselves are wide, and may include a landscaped center median; i~variably they are paved and usually lined by SIdewalks. There are large parking lots, usually in front or on one side of the cavernous, one-storey, rectangular-shaped structures that are the assembly facilities. In architecture they range from unadorned utilitarian factory designs to the corporate signatures of contemporary multinational firms. In the back or along the sides of the plants are extensive trucking ports and docks as well as storage and outdoor work space. Moreover, the parks frequently have recreational facilities, such as playgrounds and ball courts. In the public areas, it is not unusual to find artistic features, like the towering Don Quijote sculpture in El Complejo park.

Residential Landscapes
To determine residential structure, a typology was developed that included low-, middle-, and high-quality housing. Distinctions were based on a variety of visual criteria, rather than published housing or income data. These included the size of the property lot and the house, the quality of construction, and the maintenance of both house and property. Considered as well were aspects of neighborhood infrastructure, such as the existence of paved roads, sidewalks, and street lighting. In addition, a temporal dimension was incorporated that divided the housing stock into "newer" and "older" categories. These temporal classifications are relative, varying from place to place. West of the Rio Chuviscar, for example, "newer" housing refers to that constructed in the past twenty years or so, while east of the river "newer" may include housing that is thirty or forty years old. Within the six categories of housing, tremendous variation occurred. This is related in part to the fact that housing in urban Mexico, including Chihuahua, is not as spatially segmented along socioeconomic lines as it is in cities in the United States. In short, housing patterns are more mixed. However, the overall geography of housing reflects the city's history of growth, beginning with compact but varied residential development in the urban core with expansion outward over time and relatively increasing segregation by housing quality.

The survey revealed that high-quality housing constitutes about ten percent of the total housing area. Although small enclaves of older elite housing are found east of the Río Chuviscar, including most prominently the district off Avenida Francisco Zarco south of the CBD, the overwhelming bulk of high-quality housing lies north and west of the river and the urban core (Figure 6). There the older elite suburbs, which date mainly from the 1950s and 1960s, are situated either immediately across the river, as in the Lomas del Santuario neighborhood on the west, or a relatively short distance north of the CBD and immediately west of Avenida Universidad. Clearly the divide between older and newer high-quality housing is Antonio Ortíz Mena, a high-order spine that winds from Avenida de las Américas toward the southwest. Until the 1970s it [end p. 82] represented the effective western edge of the built-up area, and was initially called a periférico. Since then, elite suburbs have been developed progressively to the west of that street. Indeed, the newest and most prestigious of the elite districts, such as Quintas del Sol and Las Haciendas, are located on the far west beyond the Campestre Country Club near the new periférico.

Middle-quality housing accounts for about 45 percent of the total residential area. It is found both west and east of the river, especially surrounding the urban core and immediately north of the elite districts off Avenida Universidad. Although a few new middle-quality housing projects have been built east of the river, mainly near the southern periferico and Mexico Highway 45, development has been most concentrated west of the Río Chuviscar. In particular, the new middle-quality housing areas have emerged in the vicinity of the maquiladora industrial parks, especially Las Américas and EI Saucito, but also off Avenida Technológica. These new subdivisions include public housing projects, built and regulated primarily under the auspices of the federal government. Unlike the situation in the United States, public housing in Mexico is intended for middle-income populations (Gilbert 1989, 2-3). The most significant of the federal public housing programs in Chihuahua is the Instituto del Fondo Nacional para la Vivienda de los Trabajadores (lNFONAVIT), which constructs houses for industrial workers. INFONAVIT projects are most prevalent in the area east of EI Saucito industrial park and west of Avenida Technologico (Figure 7).

Low-quality housing amounts to roughly 45 percent of the total space devoted to residences. Although it is scattered throughout the urban area, with older districts immediately west of the river as well as newer ones located on the far northwest side, low-quality barrios are most widespread east of the Rio Chuviscar and south of the CBD. They are especially prominent in disamenity zones, such as along the rivers, arroyos, steep hillsides, and the railroad corridors. The greatest concentration, however, is around the urban periphery. Many of these neighborhoods, while lacking private amenities and public infrastructure, are nonetheless formal housing areas that were wholly or partially commercially built under government regulation. Many others, however, are squatter settlements of self-constructed houses, often built on public land. These spontaneous developments have proliferated in recent years as the city's housing shortage has intensified with accelerated population growth. In many places they have encroached upon new or existing formal-sector housing, offering sharp and stark contrasts in residential landscapes.

CONCLUSIONS
Chihuahua has been a distinctive regional capital of northern Mexico since the early nineteenth century. Until the post-World War II period, it remained a traditional Mexican city morphologically, with a compact commercial core and peripheral railroad corridor industrial districts. Residential land use was largely confined to the core and its margins with distinctive elite nodes at the ends of streetcar lines. During the last three decades, Chihuahua's urban structure has been transformed by suburban expansion, automobile oriented commercial ribbon [end p. 83] developments, and maquiladora industrial activity. Its present morphology and landscape are remarkably similar to those recently identified for the largest Mexican border cities. This would appear to support the contention made in previous research that the urban changes evident in the cities along the Mexico border are not unique, but, in fact, are indicative of a pattern of social and economic transformation that is affecting other Mexican urban places distant from the U.S. boundary. Future investigations of other northern Mexico capital cities like Hermosillo, Saltillo, Monterrey, and Ciudad Victoria are needed to verify the regional framework of this pattern of change and to establish the dimensions of regional urban types that might exist for the Mexican north.

REFERENCES
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Arizona Republic. 1992. "Mexican road not for faint of heart but worth it." October 18: T 2.

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RESUMEN
Este estudio presenta un análisis histórico y contemporáneo de la morfologí urbana y el paisaje cultural de la ciudad de Chihuahua. Basado en un mapa del uso de la tierra preparado en 1992, el estudio delinea e interpreta las diferentes regiones de la ciudad, incluyendo las areas comerciales, industriales y residenciales. Durante el siglo pasado, la ciudad de Chihuahua fue una capital regional característica del norte de México. Sin embargo, la nueva morfología urbana y los cambios observados recientemente en el paisaje cultural urbano indican que Chihuahua está siendo transformada por fenómenos similares a aquellos observados en otras ciudades del norte de México que han experimentado un crecimiento acelerado. [end p. 85]