San Miguel de Allende became popular with foreigners after World War II, when the Instituto Allende was formed for artists. Over the decades, more and more foreigners have come here, for the flourishing arts scene, to learn Spanish, or simply because it was a place with a large expat group. As a result, real estate prices have gone up and up. I heard them compared to San Francisco prices yesterday.

I wrote about San Miguel two years ago, examining its pros and cons and telling the story of our time there. In the only conversation I’d had with a Mexican about the effects of all these gringos, she had been very happy for the prosperity and work they brought.

This week, I heard a different side of things. I was looking for the market, which was not where the map in my Frommer’s Mexico said it was. I stopped in a little grocery store and asked directions. Then when I had been to the market, I remembered I wanted a jar of mayonesa (tastier than our mayonnaise with a bit of lime juice in it), so I stopped back in the same store. The woman who had given me directions was probably in her 50s, and spoke pretty clear Spanish. So as I paid her, I asked her what the Mexicans thought of the foreign presence.

She began diplomatically, saying everyone was welcome as a visitor. But, she said, it was wrong that the government allowed them to buy homes and land. The prices were now so high that most Mexicans couldn’t afford to buy in their own city. “Where are we going to go?” she asked with indignation. She assured me that I and my fellow foreigners were truly welcome, that the Mexicans were very glad to have us see their life and culture. But again she returned to the theme of being forced out by people whose wealth they couldn’t compete with.

So that’s another take. Two conversations hardly provide a total view, but it’s food for thought. I must admit that it wouldn’t stop me from buying a home in Mexico if Kelly and I decide at some point we want to do that. But if we do, I would feel the need to give back to the community in some way, by teaching English as a volunteer, or something.

San Miguel de Allende: Conversation with a Mexican is a post from: Mexico with Heart - Living, Traveling, and Retiring in Mexico

Well, we had time so we went there. It’s a farming town with some industry on the outskirts. Located just off the major north-south highway 57, it’s well positioned for factories.

We drove into town on the road from Pozos and promptly went the wrong way down a one-way street. Not an uncommon mistake of foreigners, and one that Kelly realized immediately. He easily did a U-turn, and we took a one-way street with the arrow pointing the way we wanted to go. It took us right past the market and directly to the town square. Cars were parked at a diagonal around the square, and a pickup pulled out of a spot as we approached, with a couple of men directing it. They signalled to us, did we want the spot? Kelly nodded, and they guided us in with a flourish. Then they told us it would cost 5 pesos an hour to park there… they were city employees. We paid for our first hour, about 45 cents, and wandered around the town.

The plaza was clean, the streets were clean, traffic was light, the land was pretty level, walking was easy… hmm, this was looking good. We went for a walk around the town, for maybe 45 minutes, going several blocks away from the plaza till we got to the edge of town, then coming back a different way. There was less graffiti than in Guanajuato, and we saw no street dogs.

A boy approached us, selling a sort of magazine. I asked him what it was, and he showed it to me. It was a a glossy chamber-of-commerce type publication about the city, called El Heraldo de San Jose, hot off the press. Lover that I am of information, I bought one — and grinned at it being presented to us just as we were getting curious about San Jose Iturbide.

We walked past a little gated community with modern-looking houses and signs saying that some were for rent and some were for sale. The gate was open and we stepped just inside, looking for an office. A gray-haired man on the street asked whom we were looking for. We explained that we were just curious and were wondering about living in Mexico. What was his city like? He chatted with us for several minutes, before apologetically explaining that he needed to go on his way. In that time, he said that it was a very tranquil place, and that many of its young men were working in the U.S. When we commented on how clean the city was, he said that the Mayor made it a priority.

A little later, we went to the market and got a bunch of food. I bought a bag of nopales, cactus that has had its sharp thorns removed and been cut into pieces for boiling. The woman I bought it from was very friendly, and we joked about how long it would take me to prepare it.

Back at the plaza, I stopped in at the one Artesanias shop. I asked the man working there if there were foreigners living in the city. He didn’t know of any. I commented again on the clean streets, and again received the reply that the initiative came from the Mayor.

We popped into another shop on the plaza, one selling new houses on the edge of town. Small one-story affairs with a miscule front yard, two bedrooms, a parking place, a living room, a dining room, one bathroom, a kitchen, a TV room, and a back patio for doing laundry and hanging it up cost 265,500 pesos, which is something over $24,000. There was bank financing but the young woman wasn’t used to talking with foreigners and simply couldn’t slow down even after I asked her twice, so we missed some of the details. Total external dimensions were 6 meters by 15 meters. (A meter is 39 inches.)

San Jose Iturbide is located less than a 45-minute drive from San Miguel de Allende, which is chock-a-block full of foreigners, and has real estate prices sometimes compared with San Franciso’s. This clean, friendly, and prosperous town seemed to me to be a good candidate for expat life. But if there were any foreigners there, we didn’t see them, nor any signs of anything going on in English. There were some hotels around the plaza, but we saw no indications of campgrounds.

To live here at this time would be quite an immersion in Mexican life, but if more folks from the U.S. do move to Mexico as I tend to think will happen in the coming years, I wouldn’t be surprised to find San Jose Iturbide “discovered.”

San Jose Iturbide: A Clean and Pleasant Town is a post from: Mexico with Heart - Living, Traveling, and Retiring in Mexico