Met a planning director opposing upzoning, arguing people in his municipality preferred living in informal settlements without water or sewage before living in apartments 🫠

Shoutout to my Venezuelan friend Estefani from Ciudad Guayana who supported Chavez’s eight star flag because the eighth star was her state.

Crazy how the US electoral system is turning into a race of who’s better at gerrymandering.

My reform to allow for spot zoning in Baja California Sur just got approved by the state congress 🎊

Lobbying my first YIMBY state reform, and now I am facing my first NIMBY infographic.

TIL that arabs call it Medina New York 💯

Going to Bangkok in a couple of weeks, so I made a Bangkok building height map. Send Bangkok tips and recommendations!

It is the only place in LatAm where I have seen higher parking requirements in the city center. Which makes sense, the rich car owners live in the center, the poor live in the outskirts. 8/10!

I know most people think their country has terrible urban planning. After reading zoning ordinances from every Latin American country and seeing how Mexican cities are the only ones that grow in the most isolated low-density, I don’t think there is worse planning in LatAm.

Mapping affordable housing in Mexico. Policymakers' disdain to infill development or anything above 4 stories makes affordable housing viable solely in the most remote and inaccessible locations.

Mexico City has a participatory budget. Usually, neighbors vote for pavement and street lighting with super low turnouts. This year, some of the wealthiest neighborhoods voted to hire lawyers to prtoect exclusionary zoning within their boroughs 😖

Found my first Spanish (language) housing book that avoids the typical leftist NIMBY antifinancialization approach that dominates the Latin American and Spanish housing discourse.

Cute checkboard informal settlement in the ejidos of Eastern Mexico City.

Poza Rica is Mexico's first case of urban decline. Mexico's first oil town now loses 1.1% of its population annually. The recent floods are just going to accelerate its inevitable decadence.

Which would be nice considering Tijuana's highest density is 70 dwellings per acre 😢

🥳

I have been studying how Mexican urban sprawl has been driven by public mortgage financing. I am curious why Monterrey lacks significant informal settlements compared to other Mexican cities.

Guadalajara has this really annoying green belt in the south of the city that has fostered sprawl into the municipality of Tlajomulco, far from the city center.

Just like the Soviet Union. Mexican social housing designs are repeated all over the country.

Is there another example of a metro system that brags about having more metro lines than they actually do? In Monterrey, lines 2 & 3 and 4 & 6 are basically the same line, and operate as such.

I am writing a tender for zoning ordinances and master plans. Need to evaluate the bidders’ methodologies; I’m expecting mostly bs. How can I quantify their zoning approaches objectively?​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Mexican urban growth patterns shifted by decade: 1940-60s northern border cities boomed; 1960-80s Oil-oriented Gulf cities; post-1980s beach resort towns. Chiapas's cities likely reflect its exceptional high birth rates.

Merch being sold while the widow spoke is the gringoest thing ever.

In Monterrey, Lock-off apartments are becoming quite popular. Most new developments offer them. Probably, a result of low dwelling densities.

How do the state-city relations work in the US regarding land use? Isn’t the state meddling in local affairs, like land use, unconstitutional or something?

@elenoam.bsky.social Even the local newspaper is starting to notice the sprawl problem: www.lavozdemichoacan.com.mx/mexico/ciuda...

Funny how taquerías follow a more market-based spatial distribution than housing. Mexican zoning ordinances and building codes focus on housing; retail is seldom mentioned.

Send tips on stuff to do in LA during two 24-hour layovers in LAX.

Mexico City's 2008-11 zoning updates simply copied the 1997 maps, added dwelling densities, and in some cases reduced allowable heights. Sadly, Mexican planners are extremely conservative regarding zoning. Academic circles usually oppose upzoning arguing neoliberalism and uncaptured land values.

Working in the Monterrey Metro for two years has been interesting and sad. Mexico's richest city has some of the world's worst planning. Basically, the city sprawled in high-density isolated satellite cities in financially overwhelmed municipalities with huge housing abandonment.

Going to Taiwan and Thailand next month. Send recommendations.

Updated my housing typology data with the latest Census from Bolivia. Mexico is the NIMBYest country in the Americas.

Something annoying about Mexican metropolitan planning is its failure at controlling sprawl. Some cities attempted to, but neighboring municipalities would just approve distant exourban subdivisions at its municipal boundaries.

By 2033, the system’s going to be the longest in LatAm, surpassing Mexico City.

Woke up obsessed about Nogales, Sonora. It's sole existence is due to the border; it looks super poor for a northern Mexican city. Can't really understand why they use iron roofing, when it's super warm in summer and cold in winter. The city is also in the middle of nowhere, with no flights in/out.

Is there another country where a housing policy created massive exurban developments that ended up with a high rate of abandonment? Maybe Spain? But I don't think anyone can match the scale of Mexico's.

If you were ever curious about Mexican cities modal share patterns: the poor southern cities rely on transit; rich northern cities commute by car.

Latin American vote tends to be a class-based vote. Bolivia was no different: The rich city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra voted for Quiroga and Dorian; the poor suburb of El Alto voted for Paz and annulled.

About Bogotá's planning: the city doesn't regulate FAR, instead, the maximum buildable area results from incentives and form-based codes.

Went to Bogota for the weekend. So here are some pics of the most dense and compact city in Latin America.

Everyone thinks decentralizing their city is a good idea, until they are the ones that have to move out.

Really like Santiago's suburban grid.

About to read this, so made a Cairo building height map.

Made a building height map for Sao Paulo. Now I can't stop seeing that huge SFZ that is Jardim Paulista.

Viçosa, Minas Gerais (pop: 79,000)

Made some LatAm building height maps.

Went well. The reform consists on allowing spot zoning for affordable housing projects. The state has super restrictive zoning and the only way to upzone is by updating the plan, which is too politically complex.

Lobbying my first state YIMBY reform 😬

This is very Chilean. A national ordinance (Ordenanza General de Urbanismo y Construcciones - OGUC) provides huge FAR bonuses for large lots, lot consolidation, wide street frontage, or public space improvements.

Is there an income threshold where countries become rich enough that squatting ceases to be a viable housing option?