Metropolitan Profile. Growing Scenarios and Urban carrying capacity -2016

March 2016

As part of the research we carry out about Sustainable Cities and on the framework of Urban Modeling projects, the Metropolitan Profile study for 37 metropolitan areas in Mexico was developed in order to solve two key questions: 1) To what extent, municipal urban development plans promote efficient land management at a metropolitan scale in Mexico? and 2) What are the priority problems that metropolitan areas should attend? This study includes, first, an analysis of different patterns of land use through the generation of three scenarios: busines as usual, planning, and vision, as well as an estimate of environmental, economic and social impacts related to each scenario. On the other hand, the urban carrying capacity is evaluated in each metropolitan area to identify priority problems that should be attended. Since the study is aimed at providing useful information for decision-making, we generated in parallel a tool for quick query results. Gathering information was one of the main obstacles to an analysis of this magnitude. Of the 367 municipalities that make up the 59 metropolitan areas, two out of three submitted complete information and with this data we were able to complete the analysis for 37 metropolitan areas. Likewise, we found that only 15% of Municipal Urban Development Plans (PMDU) included geospatial information, which emphasized the lack of technical capacities of the municipalities’ that make up the metropolitan areas. To ensure that the methods proposed were easy to replicate and update, the report assigns special emphasis to describing the sources and employs calculation procedures. The results and tools developed as part of the Metropolitan Profile can be used by decision makers to numerically evaluate their municipal urban development plans, or recognize improvement opportunities in current land management mechanisms.

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