It’s actually pretty good, at least when compared with most of the rest of Mexico. You’ll find good food, a safer environment than in most of Mexico (keep in mind, a lot of Mexico and parts of Mexico City are still unsafe, be aware of your surroundings and learn about staying safe) and there’s plenty to do. I have my complaints about Mexico City, but it’s good, there are much worse places to live in the world.
First and foremost, remember Mexico uses the Mexican Peso, which is unstable and fluctuates a lot in value with the dolar, during the pandemic it reached 24 pesos a dollar, today it’s at around 17, so asking the monthly cost in USD will get you an answer that may very well be invalid after some time. Depends entirely on where you plan to live and how frugal you live. There are extremely expensive, luxurious neighborhoods and there are ghetos, so there’s a wide range of incomes. As a general rule of thumb you’ll need around 50,000 Mexican pesos a month for a family of 4, so factor that into your conversion to USD.
Keep in mind Mexico City is HUGE, it’s one of the largest cities in the world, and forget about adding in the metropolitan area of Mexico City which extends into Estado de Mexico, so depending on where your job is you should look into the area surrounding it. Transportation is always complicated around here due to traffic, and the subway is always rather crowded, so ideally you should look into living as close as possible to your job site. Also keep in mind the security situation; Avoid sketchy-looking places, don’t walk around at night, don’t look for trouble and don’t bring attention to yourself. Also: learn Spanish, sure, some people do speak English, but some people take offence if you speak to them in English. Just to avoid conflict learn Spanish.
That is a tricky question. As a general rule of thumb you should try to avoid public schools if possible, the quality of education is really bad in those. As for international schools: there is the Modern American School (yes, they call it that way even in Spanish), I hear they are academically demanding and rather expensive, but from what I hear they have great outcomes.
