Cancun, a Beach City Facing Back to the Sea
Cancun was created by the Mexican government in 1970 as an enclave for international tourism on the northern coast of Quintana Roo, Mexico. It was conceived as a regional development pole and built, almost from scratch, under a modernist master plan. As the capital of the Mexican Caribbean and a quintessential sun and beach resort in the global south, Cancun has shaped, since the seventies, not only the way of doing tourism but also the way of building its spaces. However, with few exceptions in the hotel zone, the city does not have a single public waterfront designed as a public space that is worthy of its urban dimensions: neither in Puerto Juarez, nor in Puerto Cancun, nor in Malecon Tajamar. Inspired by the notion of “beach politics” (Low, fc-2025), the objective of this paper is to reconstruct an account of how, throughout its history, the city has repeatedly cancelled the longed-for “window to the sea” from its very origin, starting from the relationship between the planned support town and the locality where it originated (Puerto Juárez), the location of its center further inland in the master plan, the nautical projects long dreamed of and debated (Puerto Cancún and Malecón San Buenaventura), as well as the constant attempts to bring the city center closer to the sea.