The streets are named after European cities — Orizaba, Durango, Colima, Cordoba — and the architecture follows suit: Porfirian mansions with wrought-iron balconies, art deco apartment buildings with curved facades, and the occasional brutalist intrusion from the 1970s, all shaded by an enormous tree canopy that makes Roma feel cooler and quieter than the avenues that border it. Alvaro Obregon, the main boulevard, runs through the center with a wide pedestrian median planted with trees and lined with restaurants whose sidewalk tables extend into the evening. The side streets hold the real discoveries — Contramar on Durango, Rosetta on Colima, Maximo Bistrot on Tonala, Licoreria Limantour on Obregon.
The 1985 earthquake devastated the colonia and the 2017 quake struck again; the rebuilt Roma carries its seismic memory in the contrast between restored Porfirian mansions and the new construction that replaced collapsed buildings. The creative class that repopulated the neighborhood after 1985 built the restaurant and bar culture that now defines it, and the gentrification that followed has priced many of them out — the irony is sharp and unresolved.