[ThomasKole]

A bit of artistic license, but the trees play a crucial role. They are Ahuejotes, and they keep together the plots of farmland called Chinampas. You can see some of this today in Xochimilco.

We don't know if that was what it was like in Tenochtitlan, but it is likely. What adds to this is the fact that the houses are all one story, so the trees look taller and more numerous than they are.

[PierreProstata]

In the same vein, many of today's boulevards and highways line up with old streets in your renders, is that a historical coincidence or is the Mexico City layout a direct result of Tenochtitlan remains despite its destruction?

[akiselev]

It's not a coincidence. The conquistadors spent months in Tenochtitlan as guests of Montezuma and wrote extensively about how amazing the urban planning was. They would have preferred to keep the city in tact all things considered.

Since the Aztecs had done all of the hard work of figuring how to build out drainage and stability with the chinampas, the Spaniards built their new buildings on top of the foundations remaining from the Aztec buildings. It then took several centuries to fill in all of the canals and turn them into streets so the layout of Mexico City very much reflects Tenochtitlan.

For example the Zócalo square is right where the Aztec ceremonial center used to be and I believe the Metropolitan Cathedral was originally built on top of the foundations of a minor temple that was built as part of the Templo Mayor complex.

[wsc981]

I know in The Netherlands this happened in the city I grew up, Hoogeveen [0].

> In the second half of the 1960s, Hoogeveen was the fastest growing town in the Netherlands. Until that period, the town contained a number of canals, which had been dug in the area's early days when it was a prime source of peat and maritime transportation was a necessity for efficient transportation of cargo. By the 1960s the rise of the automobile and truck-based transportation meant the canals had lost much of their economic function, and the canals were filled in.

———

[0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoogeveen

[selimthegrim]

This is also true in New Orleans.

[totetsu]

> You can see some of this today in Xochimilco. Yikes https://maps.app.goo.gl/5XgfQTpiNaz8QUtf6