Colonia del Valle (Spanish for: Del Valle neighborhood) is a neighborhood in the Benito Juarez borough of Mexico City. It includes "...a great number of parks, vast and tree-lined streets, prestigious shopping malls, and some city landmarks...". Del Valle is bounded by the streets of: Viaducto Miguel Alemán to the north, Cuauhtémoc and Universidad to the east, Rio Mixcoac - Barranca del Muerto to the south and Insurgentes Avenue to the west. Adjacent neighborhoods include Colonia Nápoles, Ciudad de los Deportes, Noche Buena and San Borja to the west, Escandón to the northwest, Colonia Roma Sur and Piedad Narvarte to the north, Colonia Narvarte, Vértiz Narvarte and Letrán Valle to the east, and Tlacomecatl del Valle, Miguel Alemán, Xoco and Santa Cruz Atoyac to the south. History At the beginning of the 20th century the ranches cultivated with alfalfa and fruit trees were divided, giving rise to Colonia Americana. Some neighborhood streets are named after these ranches and their fruit trees, others after Mexican philanthropists. While serving as a streetcar route from Mexico City to Coyoacán it developed slowly until 1920, when it expanded and the Avenida de los Insurgentes was paved. Large-scale home and mansion construction started. The area also featured monument construction and green areas; one is the Paque Hundido, built on a former sand mine. In the 1960s the area was as fully developed as many other neighborhoods of equal purchasing power on its borders. Commercial development included two major facilities, Liverpool Insurgentes opening in 1962 and the country's first shopping center, University Plaza, in 1969. In 1978 the city built the Ejes viales, a system of wide, one-way roads criss-crossing the city, and with this Del Valle was transformed radically and permanently, its tree-lined boulevards with green medians transformed into quasi-freeways. Ejes 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 south crossed from east to west and 1, 2 and 3 from south to north. This drove many families to look for a quieter place to live and began the process of redeveloping the area. Mansions were replaced by apartment buildings, offices or schools. Crime statistics from 2009 showed that Colonia del Valle was the second most crime-ridden neighborhood in Mexico City, sharing the top 10 list with notorious neighborhoods Tepito and Colonia Doctores. However, 2012 statistics do not place Del Valle on the list of the top 6 most crime-ridden neighborhoods. Transportation Major roads running through the