Diluted density. Urban planning in the Monterrey Metropolitan Area

Abstract

The Monterrey Metropolitan Area (mma) in Northern Mexico has had an expansive and dispersed growth in recent decades. In 35 years, the city doubled its population and grew 8 times in territory (Secretariat for Sustainable Development, 2020). As a mitigation measure and with the objective of repopulating the areas within the city, urban regulations have been promoted that allow higher density and building potentials in some municipalities; however, the efforts are isolated and without metropolitan coordination. What are the urban regulation guidelines in the municipalities of the mma? How dense are its municipalities? Where are located the densest areas of the city? The objective of this research is to establish the current state of local regulation regarding urban development and to map the housing density to identify the locations with the lowest and highest density at the mma. The gross density at the Ageb scale is mapped for the 18 municipalities of the mma through the QGis software; data from the Inegi 2020 National Population and Housing Census is used. It is found that the peripheral municipalities of recent incorporation to the mma, unlike those of greater urbanization, lack urban development plans, and that most of the municipalities do not have updated regulations based on the current laws. The areas with the highest density are located in the peripheral municipalities, associated with the construction of low-income mass housing, and those with the lowest density in interior municipalities in areas of higher socioeconomic status, diluting the small efforts of densification in the city.