This article analyzes two recent urban renewal projects in Mexico City, where different subjects mobilize (neo)liberal citizenship discourses in opposition to informal street vendors. Based on ethnographic field work in the context of both projects, the text argues that while the stigmatization of the urban poor that accompanies urban renewal can be understood as part of neoliberal urban processes, it also reflects a long history of racialization of the popular sectors in Mexico, derived from the ideology of mestizaje, which permeated representations of the urban poor as backward, immoral and threatening others. Therefore, the article examines how (neo)liberal citizenship discourses get entangled with long standing forms of racialization of the urban poor, while at the same time reconfiguring them. https://doi.org/10.22380/2539472X9