Satelite History

The only prehispanic facts known about the area are that once the Tlatilca culture lived in the area formed between Totolinga, Los Cuartos and Hondo rivers. (tucked inside the industrial zone of Naucalpan we can find a small museum). Later, during the colonial period, the Shrine of Our Lady of Los Remedios was built when a Spanish officer found the religious figure under a maguey plant. It is said that the small virgin had been brought by Gonzalo Rodríguez de Villafuerte. The shrine, which divides the Satélite area from the popular zones of Naucalpan municipality, was built in the sixteenth century, and in the architectural compound we can find the well-known caracoles or Los Remedios Aqueduct.

Ciudad Satélite, the core neighbourhood, started as a new urbanistic concept in the mid fifties, when the roaring extension of Mexico City and the upcoming of a new and energetic Middle Class forced the development of whole new neighbourhoods. The story of Las Torres de Satélite, the Greater Mexico City landmark for the area, is related in another article. It has been said that the grounds (in the northwestern suburbs of the city, near the old highway to Querétaro) originally belonged to a Mexican president: Miguel Alemán Valdés, who was in office from 1946 to 1952. He kept some acres and built a huge manor in Surgeons Circuit. Architect Mario Pani created most of the urban design. The great novelty in Ciudad Satélite is the total absence (at least in the core neighbourhood) of traffic lights, due to an ingenious street layout with "circuitos" or wide oval circuits where incorporation to other main roads allow to see if cars are coming. Each of Ciudad Satélite circuits has several streets with names of famous professionals relating to the circuit's name. The names of the circuits are the following: Centro Comercial (The Mall), Centro Cívico (Civical Center), Sculptors, Painters, Musicians, Mineralogists, Pedagogues, Scientists, Engineers, Teachers, Historians, Surgeons, Doctors, Geographers, Sailors, Playwrights, Orators, Missionaries, Architects, Poets, Novelists, Economists, Heroes, Jurists, Journalists, Diplomats, and the Two external circuits (Circunvalación Oriente y Circunvalación Poniente). The urban design and the original pricing for the grounds was deliberately intended for segmenting the new city into three areas: middle class, upper middle class and high class. Novelists and Economists were the circuits with the highest ground prices, so it is not a surprise that the most spectacular manors were built there. Many of Ciudad Satélite's houses were built in a functionalist style, absent of any kind of decorative elements in the facade. This also applies to the so-called Ciudad Satélite's cathedral, San Felipe de Jesús Sanctuary. This big, spectacular church features many functionalist style elements, as well as astounding paintings. Other styles present in the neighbourhood are colonial, modernist (vintage Mexican architecture), and Spanish or Californian colonial style.

The next neighbourhoods were developed in the next years, so the urban extension of Satélite area has been growing ever since.

Contemporary issues on Satélite include the big traffic problems (as this is a sleep-over zone, many people drive to Mexico City everyday), The decrepit state of many roads, some new concerns on car robberies, violations on environmental regulations, saturation and oversupply of real estate due to new developments, and unauthorized commerces in habitational designed zones. The three municipalities in which this area sprawls are governed by the National Action Party (Mexico) (PAN), creating which has been called "The blue corridor".