Mexico Urbanization Review ─ Managing Spatial Growth for Productive and Livable Cities in Mexico

Urbanization in Mexico, as in other countries around the world, has increased prosperity and reduced poverty. However, despite impressive economic growth and prosperity, cities in Mexico do not seem to have fully captured the benefits from agglomeration, in part because of the way most Mexican cities expanded in the past. One of the key challenges facing many Mexican cities has been the rapid and uncoordinated growth of urban footprints. Over the past 30 years, the built-up area of Mexican cities expanded sevenfold and the urbanized areas of the 11 biggest metropolitan cities ninefold. This horizontal expansion has been driven mainly by large single-use housing developments on the outskirts of cities. The urban growth has largely happened unplanned and has been connected to the fissure between new developments and the provision of educational and health facilities, infrastructure, connectivity, and proximity of sources of employment. The way Mexican cities grew in the past has underutilized the cities’ potential to boost economic growth and foster social inclusion and livability. This Urbanization Review sets out to provide an analytical basis to understand how well-managed spatial growth can further contribute to unlocking the gains from urbanization. To this end, the report first analyzes the spatial development patterns of Mexican cities by creating a set of spatial indexes for the 100 largest cities and reviews the main policy shortcomings that have resulted in uncoordinated urban expansion. It also reviews the overall performance and remaining challenges for Mexican cities to transition into a high-income country and examines how recent urban spatial growth has affected economic performance and livability of Mexican cities. Based on the analysis, it offers adjustment to policy framework and instruments to support more sustainable spatial development and to make Mexican cities become more productive and inclusive.