"What is a city but its people"*: commentary on "Migration and peripheral urbanization: the case of the metropolitan zone of the valley of Mexico" by Raul Delgado Wise, Francisco Caballero Anguiano and Selene Gaspar Olvera

This commentary centres on themes of conquest, globalization, and inequality and argues that the article Migration and Peripheral Urbanization: The Case of the Metropolitan Zone of the Valley of Mexico can be understood as suggesting prescriptions for forward-looking socio-economic and migration policy. The article's authors focus on the effects of neoliberalism on the Metropolitan Zone, explaining how globalization has dismantled domestic markets in the global South and triggered both internal and cross-border migration. In the phenomenon the authors dub "peripheral urbanization", poor people now live in the periphery of the city, having been priced out of the city centre. Assuming a shared commitment to reversing the effects of conquest and equalizing wealth, the authors' analysis supports the removal of morality and membership theory from discourse regarding border crossings and immigration. In addition, the authors can be understood as demonstrating that neoliberal, trickle-down economics have been a failure.