What If Your Culture Sucks?

The mayor of Mexico City, Mexico, is trying to clean up the city's crime and dirt problem by employing the same tactics that Rudy Giuliani used to clean up Times Square in New York.

MEXICO CITY — The world's second-largest city has a lot of problems: kidnappings for ransom, drug-related murders, severe poverty. But if there's one thing that really sets off Mexico City Mayor Marcelo Ebrard, it's chewing gum.

He's serious.

"When you throw your gum on the ground, you're saying, 'I don't care about my quality of life,' " Ebrard says. "The idea … is to change our civic culture."

Since taking office three years ago, the liberal, Paris-educated mayor has initiated broad quality-of-life measures more fitting for a genteel European city than rough-and-tumble Mexico.

He is also working to tackle some of the city's major problems — crime and water shortages — but his quest for civility garners the headlines.

Some residents are less than thrilled with the mayor's efforts.

Maximiliano Díaz, 45, had been selling handmade flutes and drums for 22 years from a booth in Coyoacán plaza. His sales have fallen by 80% since August, when the city forced him to move to a market built for vendors that is hard to find, Díaz says. "There's this fever to civilize Mexico, but in the process we're losing our rights to our public spaces," Díaz says. "I understand the mayor wants to modernize us, but he's taking away a bit of our culture."