Publications
What the data say when cities are compared.
Each project answers one question in one city. These publications read the results from Mexico, Colombia and Uruguay together, looking for the processes that repeat across different regions, and those that do not.
Three cities, three ways of growing
Cancún grows outward, Bogotá grows inward but far from services, and Montevideo builds where the city already is. In Cancún and Bogotá, where it was measured, zoning does not steer the pattern.
Mexico Colombia Uruguay · October 2026
What is far away is what is public
In the cities of Mexico, Colombia and Uruguay, shops and a transit stop are usually close by. What is missing within a fifteen-minute walk is health care, culture, school and care services: what depends on public decisions.
Mexico Colombia Uruguay · October 2026
The two peripheries
In all three regions, the low-income periphery accumulates the deficits: fewer services, less transit, more irregular waste collection and complaints that take longer to resolve. But there is another periphery, that of gated subdivisions and complexes, which is also far away, by choice.
Mexico Colombia Uruguay · October 2026
What the records don’t see
Complaints, driver reports, crime reports and business directories say a lot about who records and little about where the problem is. In all three regions, records see those who are better served more clearly.
Mexico Colombia Uruguay · October 2026
The avenue, the motorcycle and those on foot
In Montevideo, Bogotá, Cancún and Guadalupe, serious road harm is concentrated on a few fast avenues and falls on those who ride motorcycles and those who walk. The figures are similar even though the sources differ.
Mexico Colombia Uruguay · October 2026