The city’s been the cultural and political capital of this area since the Aztecs founded it in the thirteen hundreds. It’s a dog’s breakfast of architectural styles—ultra-modern tinted glass skyscrapers and geodesic domes rub shoulders with heritage buildings constructed shortly after the Spanish conquest (buildings that are patched together with plenty of ferrocrete, and can hardly be called "original" any more). Gleaming luxury hotels alternate with tiny concrete-and-plaster shops that are fronted at street level with corrugated metal roll-up doors painted in vivid primary colors. The culture clash is everywhere—traditionalist Aztlan buildings and taco stands share street space with pagoda-roofed noodle and sushi bars, monumental arches supported by Grecian pillars, New York-style haberdashery shops, a smaller-scale reproduction of the Sydney opera house, dome-topped towers reminiscent of something out of a Russian fairy tale, and streetside cappuccino bars that looked as if they had been lifted, clientele and all (but with fancier breathers, of course) from the rainy streets of Seattle.