Imaginary Mexico and the illusion of the digital nomad

As digital nomads become increasingly visible in cities around the world, they are often cast as the face of gentrification and rising housing costs. Yet focusing on the individual may obscure the broader forces reshaping urban life. In this blog, ISS PhD candidate Alberto Estrada Mares draws on fieldwork in Mexico City to examine how competing visions of the city shape experiences of belonging, exclusion and urban transformation. 

‘Gringo, go home!’ was the chant that echoed through the streets of Mexico City during the 2025 protests against skyrocketing rents, casting digital nomads as the villains behind gentrification. But are they really the architects of this phenomenon, or are they, rather, symptoms of a failed and deeply unequal vision of the city? 

This conflict can be understood as a modern clash between what the Mexican ethnographer Guillermo Bonfil termed México Imaginario (Imaginary Mexico) – a Eurocentric, racialized and capitalist modernization project imposed by the elites – and México Profundo (Deep Mexico), which unites communities, local knowledge and economies beyond ethnicity that form the social fabric and historicity of urban space.  

A city divided between imagination and reality 

My fieldwork in Roma and Condesa reveals that this dichotomy has taken on a clear spatial form: a city divided between the periphery (the deep) and center (the imaginary), where central neighbourhoods have been subjected to extreme commodification and reconfigured into hubs of ‘creative tourism’ designed to attract global capital and a transnational creative class. The result is a carefully curated landscape of minimalist cafés, boutique hotels and short-term rental platforms.  

In this environment, the traditional taco stand or neighbourhood market does not simply coexist with this transformation. It is also forced to ‘refine’ its offerings – from adjusting the spiciness of its sauces to aestheticizing its products to meet the demands of a new transnational consumer of the space. Viewed through this lens, the local does not disappear by chance, but rather transforms to fit into the ecosystem that the imagined Mexico tailors for the transnational consumer, now embodied in the digital nomad.  

The paradox of the digital nomad 

For the digital nomad, the México Imaginario initially appears attractive. In my conversations with them, the narratives recur: they describe Mexico City as a ‘vibrant’ and ‘affordable’ place, a destination that offers a higher quality of life than other cities in the Global South. Tourist status   allows them temporary stays of up to stay for six months, often renewable on a routine basis.  

Yet, the same forces that make the city attractive also expose the limits of their position. Rooted in the commodification and aestheticization of spaces and services, México Imaginario ultimately confronts digital nomads with rising costs and increasing competition for housing. Paradoxically, a sense of displacement emerges in these conversations. Many report that securing a fixed accommodation in central neighbourhoods for their temporary stay has become nearly impossible due to recent price hikes that were accerlerated by the pandemic. As a result, they are forced to constantly move between Airbnbs and, in most cases, to the outskirts of Roma and Condesa.  

This raises a counterintuitive question that is even strange to ask: is it possible for the gentrifier to feel gentrified?  

Answering this question requires dismantling the conception of the digital nomad as a subject of absolute privilege. Rather, they can be understood as a middle-class worker from the Global North whose privilege is relative. Their ability to inhabit the city is subject to the same market volatility that they themselves help to fuel. Their position of privilege is, above all, relational. 

When belonging becomes a privilege 

Within this urban reconfiguration, tensions emerge within the local population. While some groups align themselves with the narrative of the México Imaginario, validating these transformations as a ‘natural’ evolution toward a global city, the  México Profundo perceives them as an exclusionary frontier. For those who have historically lived in these neighbourhoods or commute from the outskirts to keep them running, gentrification does not symbolize progress but rather a slow expulsion.  

A service infrastructure has emerged that functions as a sociomaterial boundary. Local residents are allowed to move about and work within them, but denied the right to live there. When even a cup of coffee costs a significant share of the minimum wage – let alone the cost of housing – consumption ceases to be a choice and becomes a mechanism of social and spatial segregation.  

This logic alters the social function of the neighbourhood. Public space, once a place of gathering and memory, is replaced and mediated by nodes of private consumption. Under this dynamic, access to centrality becomes a restricted privilege, with purchasing power determining who has the right to belong. Thus, the local worker is turned into a stranger in their own neighbourhood, stripped not only of their home but also of the networks and knowledge that gave their presence meaning. 

Who is the city really for? 

An inevitable question arises. Although it may seem tautological, it must be asked: if México Imaginario ultimately makes it unsustainable for those it seeks to attract to remain, while simultaneously displacing those who make the city function, then for whom is this city really being built?  

Perhaps the question does not seek a novel answer but points to the obvious. This model was not designed to be lived in but to be capitalized on. Its benefits do not lie in the well-being of its inhabitants – neither the local nor the nomad – but in the profitability of the urban space itself. The figure of the villain fades away. The digital nomad is merely a symptom of a city that has ceased to be inhabited and has become a financial asset. 

About the author:

Alberto Estrada is a PhD researcher originally from Guadalajara, Mexico. He is part of the Migration, Im/mobilities and Place research group, working at the intersection of urban development, migration, and socio-spatial inequalities. His research focuses on the politics of migration and urban development, examining their effects on place-making and mobility opportunities, with a primary emphasis on Latin American contexts.

All opinions expressed in this blog are the author’s own, and are not necessarily representative of BLISS, the International Institute of Social Studies, or Erasmus University Rotterdam. Please use generative AI tools with care.