In Move Towards Statehood, Mexico City Officially Changes Its Name to - Mexico City David Agren - The Guardian
go to original January 30, 2016

The letters of the new acronym of Mexico City are seen at a square of the city. (Omar Torres/AFP/Getty Images)

Mexico has rechristened its capital city, embracing the name by which it is known worldwide, but causing a conundrum for residents who for decades have referred to the sprawling megalopolis as the Federal District – or “DF”

President Enrique Peña Nieto officially changed the capital’s name to “Mexico City” on Friday as part of a reform to devolve power from the federal government, allowing the city’s mayor to name senior officials including the police chief.

It also turns the capital’s 16 boroughs into entities similar to municipalities, with their own mayors and councils.

The reform moves Mexico City – the area of nearly nine million people surrounded on three sides by the grungy suburbs of Mexico State – closer towards becoming a state in its own right.

But analysts say the devil remains in the details, which will be enshrined in a new constitution.

“This is an administrative reform more than anything,” said Adrián Rueda, local politics columnist in the Excélsior newspaper.

Rueda expects the new constitution to keep the city’s liberal provisions for same-sex marriages and decriminalized abortions (a procedure outlawed in more than half of Mexico’s 31 states).

Read the rest at The Guardian

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