Research
I study cities as complex systems. I want to understand how cities work, meaning the regularities and mechanisms behind their form and dynamics, as a path toward understanding social systems more broadly, and I try to turn that understanding into evidence and tools for planning and public policy. My work combines ideas from statistical physics with urban modeling, simulation, and geospatial data science, and most of it focuses on Mexico and Latin America.
For the complete list of papers, see publications.
Themes
Urban growth and population dynamics
Mexican cities have grown outward much faster than their populations, and their centers have emptied. Using multi-temporal population grids that we built for 69 metropolitan areas from four censuses (MexPop), we found that urban populations nearly doubled between 1990 and 2020 while central areas lost about 2.5 million residents (Peraza-Mues et al. 2026). I also work on models of urban expansion, from an open implementation of the SLEUTH cellular automaton to scenario-planning tools developed with the Inter-American Development Bank (Madera Arends et al. 2024).
Segregation and inequality
Measuring segregation usually requires income data for small areas, which Mexico’s census does not report. I developed a method that combines census and survey data through iterative proportional fitting to estimate small-area income distributions and compute segregation indices from them (Peraza-Mues et al. 2024). With colleagues, I have also studied how economic complexity and urban sprawl shape socio-spatial segregation across Mexican cities (Cruz-Sandoval et al. 2025).
Mobility and synthetic populations
Agent-based transport models need detailed synthetic populations of households and people. I build them for the models of Monterrey and Guadalajara that we develop with the University of Toronto (GTAModel/SOFIAA), using a population-synthesis method based on linear and quadratic programming that works with the aggregate data available in Mexico. Related work uses machine learning to impute informal workers in travel surveys (Maia de Souza et al. 2025).
Urban health and climate
With the Global Observatory of Healthy and Sustainable Cities, I contribute software and analysis to global indicators of healthy and sustainable cities, including a global index of urban heat vulnerability (Turner et al. 2025) and indicators of cycling access. Earlier, with the Inter-American Development Bank, I built tools to assess urban heat islands in Latin American cities.
From physics to cities
Before working on cities, I studied self-organization in granular matter, including the spontaneous rotation of vibrated disk packings (Moukarzel et al. 2020; Peraza-Mues and Moukarzel 2019). That training in statistical physics is where my approach to cities comes from.
Selected work
- Scaling and population loss in Mexican urban centres. Nature Communications, 2026. [DOI] · [Code & data]
- The interplay of economic complexity and urban sprawl in shaping socio-spatial segregation in Mexico. Applied Geography, 2025. [DOI]
- Development and validation of the Global Urban Heat Vulnerability Index (GUHVI). Urban Climate, 2025. [DOI]
- Income segregation analysis in limited-data contexts. Geographical Analysis,
- URSA: A tool to guide urban planning using satellite data. Inter-American Development Bank, 2024. [DOI] · [Code]
- Rotational transport via spontaneous symmetry breaking in vibrated disk packings. Physical Review Letters, 2020. [DOI]
Projects
- Synthetic population and processing of the 2023 origin–destination survey.
- Quantitative analysis; geostatistical and econometric analysis at the census-tract (AGEB) level.
- Analysis of the likelihood of successful revitalization, particularly in areas with access to mass transit.
- Population exposure analysis (Guaymas case study).
- Population grids for 69 metropolitan areas, the basis of the Nature Communications study on population loss in urban centres.
- Technical team; evaluated scenario-planning tools (CommunityViz, SILO) and prepared data for land-suitability and development scenarios.
- Participatory workshops with state and municipal officials, business chambers, and experts.
- Synthetic population and origin–destination tables for travel-demand modeling.
- GIS analysis to map human settlements in the Amazon region.
- Network metrics and accessibility analysis.
- Open web platform on three decades of urban expansion in Monterrey, launched in April 2024.
- Interactive dashboard for urban heat island assessment in Latin America.
- Evaluation of mitigation strategies for urban heat islands.
- Interactive dashboard of urban growth in Latin America.
- Urban growth simulator for scenario planning to 2050.
Collaborators & funding
I work with colleagues at the Center for the Future of Cities and the School of Government and Public Transformation of Tecnológico de Monterrey, and with the University of Toronto Transportation Research Institute, the Complexity Science Hub Vienna, the Global Observatory of Healthy and Sustainable Cities, and the Inter-American Development Bank. Partners in applied projects include Consejo Nuevo León, IMEPLAN (Guadalajara), IMPLAN Saltillo, and the Municipality of San Pedro Garza García.
This work has been supported by Tecnológico de Monterrey’s Challenge-Based Research program, the Inter-American Development Bank, Fundación FEMSA, and Mexico’s National System of Researchers (SNII).