Editing Ciudad Juárez (section)

=== Beautification ===
A beautification program spruced up the city center, building a series of arched porticos around the main square, as well as neo-colonial façades for main public buildings such as the city health clinic, the central fire station, and city hall. The cathedral, built in the 1950s, gave the city center the flavor of central Mexico, with its carved towers and elegant dome, but structural problems required its remodeling in the 1970s. The city's population reached some 400,000 by 1970. In 1984, the city had a [[Ciudad Juárez cobalt-60 contamination incident|radiation incident]] after a private medical company illegally purchased a radiation therapy unit. It was dismantled, sold to a junkyard and later smelted to produce six thousand tons of [[rebar]] (which is used to reinforce buildings), exposing thousands to radiation.

[[File:PlazaDeLaMexicanidad.jpg|thumb|View of the Plaza de la Mexicanidad in north central Juárez]]

Juárez has grown substantially in recent decades due to a large influx of people moving into the city in search of jobs with the [[maquiladoras]]. {{As of | 2014}} more technological firms have moved to the city, such as the [[Delphi Corporation]] Technical Center, the largest in the Western Hemisphere, which employs over 2,000 engineers. Large [[slum|slum housing]] communities called ''[[colonia (border settlement)|colonias]]'' have become extensive.

Juárez has a long, notorious history of [[drug trafficking]] and the intense related violence.<ref name=bbc>[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7682465.stm "Human heads sent to Mexico police"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110728033147/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7682465.stm |date=July 28, 2011 }}, ''BBC News'', October 21, 2008. Accessed March 5, 2009</ref> Mexico's first homegrown cartel, run by [[Ignacia Jasso]], was seated in the city, and for a time controlled much of the border drug trade.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Duhaime |first=Christine |title=Queen of the North: the forgotten story of how a woman more dangerous than Lucky Luciano, ran the first Mexican drug cartel for 50 years |url=https://www.antimoneylaunderinglaw.com/2021/01/queen-of-the-north-the-forgotten-story-of-how-a-woman-more-dangerous-than-lucky-luciano-ran-the-first-mexican-drug-cartel-for-50-years.html/2 |access-date=2021-07-01 |website=Anti Money Laundering Law in Canada |date=January 7, 2021 |language=en-US |archive-date=July 9, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210709182331/https://www.antimoneylaunderinglaw.com/2021/01/queen-of-the-north-the-forgotten-story-of-how-a-woman-more-dangerous-than-lucky-luciano-ran-the-first-mexican-drug-cartel-for-50-years.html/2 |url-status=live }}</ref> Today the [[Juárez Cartel]] controls the routes in Juárez. Related violence in the city is responsible for more than 1,000 unsolved [[Female homicides in Ciudad Juárez|murders of young women]] from 1993 to 2003.{{Citation needed|date=October 2021}}