Planning tool
Where to grow?
A tool of explicit filters over Cancún's 46,000 vacant lots: with accessible jobs, a nearby bus, outside hazard and with school and day care at hand, 11% of the capacity zoning already allows survives.
In one sentenceChooses, with explicit conditions, which permitted land to use first: here 11% of the capacity survives.
Spanish original: ¿Dónde crecer?
Where should Cancún grow?
Cancún has 46,000 vacant parcels where the plan already allows 115 million m².
This atlas applies urban conditions one by one and lets everyone adjust the thresholds.
Key findings
Permitted land is far from work
Only 17% of vacant capacity is where at least 30% of jobs can be reached in 45 minutes by bus.
Eleven per cent
With a bus nearby, no storm-surge hazard and school and day care close, 12.9 million m² remain on 444 ha.
No scores
Each condition is an adjustable filter: the tool shows the land cost of each requirement.
Approach
Step 1
Bring attributes from the series' atlases onto each vacant lot: zoning, job accessibility, bus, hazard, school and day care.
Step 2
Apply conditions one by one with explicit thresholds, without weighting or adding, and show how much land survives.
Step 3
Let users adjust thresholds to make the cost of each requirement visible.
How to read it
- Thresholds are policy decisions, not data.
- Distances to bus, school and day care are straight-line.
- Some vacant lots may have recent buildings.
Data
Zoning against the built city
Vacant lots and 2026 regulatory capacity.
One hour by bus
Job accessibility and virtual stops.
The city under the surge
INEGI 2022 hazard levels.
Business directory 2026
Primary schools and day care.
What supports the method
- SEDATU (2024)Risks, including coastal flooding, are integrated into the analysis (p. 98), and high-risk areas go to non-developable zoning (p. 117).
- ONU-Hábitat (2015)Recommends steering expansion to safe areas and restricting high-risk ones (p. 125).
Paraphrased; page numbers refer to the PDF consulted. The library is in Spanish.
What you just saw
Successive filters over vacant land: accessible jobs, nearby bus, outside hazard, school and day care.
What else this method can answer
- What happens if the thresholds change?
- Where should well-served social housing go?
- Which land should be rezoned?
In other places
Works with a vacant-land layer and the same accessibility and hazard indicators.
Line of work
A · Zoning, land and urban capacity →Do you have a similar question in your city?
Describe the problem
Next in Land, housing and zoningThe emptying city