Living in Merida

The oldest houses in Merida stand inside the colonial grid; the newest ones stand in villages that were farm country a generation ago. Merida Centro holds 659 blocks of buildings from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, so a rental there usually means high ceilings, a patio and a front door opening straight onto the sidewalk, with the Mercado Lucas de Gálvez close enough to walk to. Itzimná, to the northeast, grew from the country retreats of families leaving the crowded center in the nineteenth century, on big lots under old trees. Buenavista is smaller, some forty-eight hectares of an old estate absorbed by the city, now split between houses and the offices and dealerships that line the Prolongación.

What to consider before renting

The municipality does not end at the Periférico: it runs many kilometers farther north and west, and several of its comisarías, the outlying village districts, now live as much off the ring road as off their own plaza. Cholul keeps its village core about eight kilometers northeast, barely past the ring road, with new subdivisions built up around it. Dzityá, on the northwest side, is the wood and stone carving village, its family workshops reached from federal highway 261. Past the municipal line, Chicxulub Pueblo is a separate inland municipality where a house rents for about what it does in Merida, but in a small town on the way to the coast rather than in a city.