Having been to Mexico City recently, I can verify it deserves to be on the list. It is absolutely a fantastic experience and a metropolis to behold. It's also rife with poverty and not a place I would want to visit again. What the article doesn't mention is the incredible forward-thinking design is limited to the more affluent parts of MXC. Much of the city's structures are low-cost shoddy concrete buildings built without adhesion to the city's building codes, essentially uncontrolled. The lake bed on which it resides is sinking because of the lack of moisture in the ground, an ironic and sad fact when you consider the city is flooded nearly every year. The water management in general is terrible. On the metro, I regularly saw children trying to sell various items traveling from car to car.
On the bright side the food is great and everything is cheap.
I'm in Toronto atm visiting a friend. He says the planned metro line extensions were halted thanks to lack of funding and the new fleet of street cars is actually just 15 new ones from the projected 52 they were supposed to get. It is a beautiful city however, and despite his complaints the public transit lines are generally clean and not packed to the brim. But holy shit is it cold here. And there are people walking around outside with not much more than a thin coat and leggings. I'm baffled.