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Where do cities emerge and evolve? We examine persistence and change in the distribution of Mexico's urban population from the colonial era to the present, with emphasis on the country's 20th-century transformation. We demonstrate that while early trade patterns and historical persistence were instrumental in sowing the seeds of Mexico's contemporary city system, both technological change and policy significantly altered the trajectory of urbanization. The relative importance of locational fundamentals decreases over time, while the influence of international trade access increases, highlighting that political and economic decision-making shape the importance of geography for development. The findings suggest that although geographic advantage plays an important role in initial city emergence, geography is not destiny in urbanization.

We examine the complementary influence of elite politics, popular grievances, and central government weakness on rebellion. Efforts to strengthen the central state often come at the expense of the elite intermediaries charged with maintaining local political control. By driving a wedge between local elites and the central government, centralizing reforms can reduce intermediaries' willingness to repress mobilization, providing an opening for popular rebellion during both localized and national crises. For a given level of commoner grievance, revolts from below are thus more likely to be attempted and more likely to spread where elites' incentives to enforce order have been diminished. We formalize these ideas and provide supportive evidence using subnational data on rebellion, tax centralization, and drought in colonial Mexico from the late seventeenth century to the War of Independence.