{"id":174167,"date":"2026-08-17T12:23:34","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T18:23:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tecscience.tec.mx\/en\/?p=174167"},"modified":"2026-09-02T16:40:26","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T22:40:26","slug":"mexican-cities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tecscience.tec.mx\/en\/cities-and-prosperous-communities\/mexican-cities\/","title":{"rendered":"Mexican Cities are Expanding Towards the Periphery, but its Centers are Increasingly Empty"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In Mexico, cities have doubled their populations in the last thirty years and are expanding at an accelerated pace. At the same time, they are experiencing massive population loss in their city centers. This had been speculated about for years, but it had not been possible to demonstrate it with evidence \u2014until now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It\u2019s not just that metropolitan areas have grown in the peripheries, but also that the people who used to live in the centers have been expelled<\/strong>,\u201d says Gonzalo Peraza<\/a>, a researcher at the Center for the Future of Cities<\/a> (CFC) and associate professor at the School of Government and Public Transformation<\/a> (EGobiernoyTP) of Tecnol\u00f3gico de Monterrey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a recent study published in Nature<\/em><\/strong>, Peraza and a group of researchers found that between 1990 and 2020, the urban centers of 69 metropolitan areas in the country lost around 2.5 million inhabitants<\/a> and moved to intermediate and peripheral areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The collaboration between the CFC and the Complexity Science Hub<\/a> in Austria showed that this loss can be observed in cities of different sizes and characteristics, even when their overall population increases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This directly impacts the quality of life of those who inhabit them<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some of the effects include longer commute times, increased greenhouse gas emissions, and a decline in mental health due to traffic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“When you look at the demographics, it makes you think what we\u2019re doing is pointless,\u201d says Roberto Ponce, research director at the CFC and leader of the project. \u201cWe\u2019ve invested so many resources in city centers and we\u2019re abandoning them to go to the outskirts, where there are no services.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Math Behind How Mexican Cities Have Grown<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

To demonstrate this, the researchers built a spatial database of 69 Mexican metropolitan areas from the population and housing censuses of the National Institute of Statistics and Geography<\/a> (INEGI) of 1990, 2000, 2010, and 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe designed a data flow that allowed us to fix the geometric alignment errors,\u201d Peraza explains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next, they divided the maps into a grid of cells approximately 470 by 470 meters, like a chessboard superimposed on the territory. This allowed them to stop viewing the cities solely as a collection of municipalities or administrative areas and instead observe how the population was distributed within it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They established their historical founding point as the center<\/strong> and calculated how far each cell was from that point, organizing the territory into concentric rings to measure the distance to the center.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In order to compare huge cities, such as Mexico City, with small ones, such as Zamora, Michoac\u00e1n, they used sophisticated mathematics to compress or expand the population of each of the cities and assume a simulated population of one million inhabitants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOnce they all have this hypothetical population, you can see where the gain is and where the loss is,\u201d explains Rafael Prieto<\/a>, a researcher at the Complexity Science Hub.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus, they were able to distinguish between the effect of a city simply being bigger and a real change in the way its population was distributed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, they compared these distributions across different years and calculated how much the population had shifted outwards. They called this indicator the urban expansion factor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\r\n \r\n \"\"\r\n <\/picture>
From top to bottom, left to right: Gonzalo Peraza, researcher at the Center for the Future of Cities (CFC) and associate professor at the School of Government and Public Transformation; Roberto Ponce, research director at the CFC and project leader; Rafael Prieto, researcher at the Complexity Science Hub; Eugen Res\u00e9ndiz, CFC fellow and research professor at the School of Architecture, Art and Design; and Rodolfo Figueroa, data scientist at the CFC. (Photo: Courtesy)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Impacts of the Great Loss<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Comparison of urban expansion between Mexico City and Puebla-Tlaxcala between 2000 and 2020, based on data from a study by the Center for the Future of Cities and the Complexity Science Hub. (Image: Courtesy)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

What they found was surprising to the researchers involved: every city analyzed had lost population in the center<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1990, more than 40% of the urban population lived in central areas. By 2020, that proportion had fallen to 22%, creating larger and denser cities, but poorly located\u201489% of the new population lives in distant or peripheral areas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn some cases they lose thousands of people, in others hundreds of thousands,\u201d says Rodolfo Figueroa<\/a>, a data scientist at the CFC.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although the discovery may not sound so shocking, its important to consider that this is a universal loss throughout the entire country and that it happened despite each city having different governments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We had different political parties, different mayors, different governors, and yet it happened,\u201d Prieto reflects. \u201cThere was no invisible hand; we simply let the demographics of a country happen.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although the study’s objective was solely to diagnose the problem, the authors point out that this large loss has negative repercussions: more and more people are living far from central areas, increasing the distances they must travel daily to go to work<\/strong>, school, or the doctor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPeople travel almost 30% more to get to the centers,\u201d says Eugen Res\u00e9ndiz<\/a>, fellow of the CFC and research professor at the School of Architecture, Art and Design<\/a> (EAAD) of Tec de Monterrey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This increased need to travel has a direct impact on traffic, the saturation of public transport systems, the mental health of the population due to having to spend so much time in transit, and greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Each graph depicts the evolution of 69 Mexican cities per decade. Red marks population loss in urban centers; green marks growth in the outskirts. Source: Center for the Future of Cities and Complexity Science Hub.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Rich Periphery and the Poor Periphery<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Another consequence is that city centers become less safe, as they are full during the day with people who work there, but empty at night because no one lives there. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Resources are also wasted there. Bringing infrastructure and services to the peripheries is more expensive and complicated<\/strong>, which makes it difficult to guarantee them, greatly affecting the most vulnerable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe people who end up being expelled from the centers are the ones who work there,\u201d says Res\u00e9ndiz.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Experts also point out that the expansion of cities has created two peripheries: the rich one and the poor one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In wealthy areas, the main impact of this phenomenon is the increase in travel times. In poor areas it is compounded by insecurity and the lack of basic services such as drinking water, drainage, electricity and public transport.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn Chalco, for example, the possibility of having water is almost zero and there is a terrible absence of government,\u201d Prieto points out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is also a loss of contact with cultural activities due to the distance from historical centers. \u201cWhen we look at where the museums are, almost none of them are in the peripheries,\u201d says Res\u00e9ndiz.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus, the researchers argue that the loss of population in city centers is a problem that must be addressed urgently so that the pattern does not repeat itself in the following decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAl permitir que la poblaci\u00f3n se concentre en las zonas centrales, se consigue que las ciudades sean menos funcionales y eficientes\u201d, a\u00f1ade Peraza.<\/font><\/font><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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