[2] The larger official neighborhood it is part of is Colonia Juárez, located just west of the historic center of Mexico City.

From the 1950s to 1980s the neighborhood was revitalized by artists, intellectuals and the city's elite who repopulated the area, gave it a bohemian reputation and attracted exclusive restaurants and clubs for visiting politicians and other notables.

From the 1990s, the area has also become home to Mexico City's gay community, which is prominent around Amberes Street and sponsors an annual pride parade on Paseo de la Reforma.

For this reason the streets were named after European cities such as Hamburg (Hamburgo), London (Londres), Copenhagen (Copenhague), Genoa (Genova), Nice (Niza), and Liverpool.

[6] Expensive cafes and restaurants, art galleries, and jewelry stores continued to attract wealthy residents, although on a reduced scale.

[4][5] This period saw the opening of trendy bars, clubs, restaurants, cafes, bookstores, and art galleries which gave the area a bohemian feel.

[8] This mix of bohemian and propriety prompted Cuevas to comment that the area "Es demasiado ingenua para ser roja, pero demasiado frívola para ser blanca, por eso es precisamente rosa (is too naive to be red, but too frivolous to be white, for this reason it is precisely pink)".

[4] Real deterioration began when the older, finer businesses such as boutiques and galleries moved out, mostly due to the economic crisis of the 1980s and the 1985 Mexico City earthquake, which substantially damaged the area.

[4][5] Many of the more exclusive businesses were replaced by men's clubs, gay bars, and massage parlors, which has made Zona Rosa more “red” than “pink”.

[5][6] As the area was promoted for tourism, fast-food places, nightclubs, and bars sprung up, which have engendered problems with underage drinking and prostitution.

[5][8][9] La Ronda was an establishment visited by intellectuals such as Guadalupe Amor and Manuel Felgueres, but today it is a men's club named Foxy's.

Tourist police were implemented, and efforts to better regulate businesses, control prostitutions, repair infrastructure and promote tourism were undertaken at various times during the 2000s.

According to the owners, the movies shown are not pornography but rather films such as Last Tango in Paris, Basic Instinct and Wild Orchid, which do not have explicit sex scenes meriting an XXX rating.

[7] About 40 sculptures – 17 created by young artists from the Escuela Nacional de Artes Plasticas of UNAM – have been installed on various streets, sponsored by the Rotary Club of Zona Rosa.

[4] In total, there are 714 businesses in the area, 137 of which are restaurants, which cater to foreign and Mexican visitors as well as businessmen who work on nearby Paseo de la Reforma.

[4][5] Here, dozens of people handing out flyers stop pedestrians and drivers advertising gay bars and men's clubs, some of which operate illegally.

[18] It is also the site of the Corridor de Arte José Luis Cuevas, which occurs on weekends when an average of 40 artists display their works for sale.

[19] Today, homosexuality on Amberes Streets and the rest of Zona Rosa is fairly open with handholding and kissing among same-sex couples.

[19] These bars, clubs, and other entertainment places mostly cater to younger crowds and play reggaeton, psycho-punk, etc., with lasers, strobe lights and other typical decor.

[23] During this event, the nightclubs, discothèques and bars of Zona Rosa fill with members of the LGBT community starting at midday.

Residents and business owners complain that this prostitution is very open and can be very aggressive, centered on the various gay bars that can be found on and around Ambares Street.

[26] In Zona Rosa, especially west of Florencia Street, barber shops, restaurants, and Internet cafes with signs in Korean dot the area.

[17] Most immigrated to Mexico in the 1990s and the first decade of the 21st century, as a result of commercial agreements signed by the Mexican government with Korea and Taiwan, allowing companies such as Daewoo to bring workers over from Asia.

However, according to some sources such as Alfredo Romero, professor of the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences at UNAM, a large percentage of Koreans living in Mexico have questionable immigration status.

Since they were established in the 1990s, these businesses have grown in size and number and include sex shops, bookstores, movie theaters and exclusive hotels, as well as bars and nightclubs.

[19] Most customers in Zona Rosa's businesses are visitors from other parts of the city, foreign tourists, and businessmen who come from nearby office buildings concentrated on or near Paseo de la Reforma.

[4][8] The area that connects Metro Insurgentes with Zona Rosa tends to become crowded with street peddlers selling tamales, perfumes, handicrafts, unlicensed CDs/DVDs and more to passerby groups.

However, these nightclubs, especially the men's clubs, have a reputation for attracting prostitution, underage drinking, illegal gambling, and other crime, which has a detrimental effect on tourism.

Although the area is still heavily promoted by the city, its secretary of tourism has admitted that it has lost much of its international prestige and can no longer be assured of its status as a tourist attraction.

[8][10] To counter its decline, the city has worked to rehabilitate the area, linking it with the more popular historic center through the Reforma-Centro Historico tourism corridor in 2005.