We also prepared Urban Dispersion, our new interactive visualization in Cities Moving, where you can see the details among all 69 cities in Mexico and compare them. citiesmoving.com/UrbanDispers...

Despite a population growth of 40% in the whole metro area, within 13.7km of the centre of Mexico City (not such a small area), the population decreased by over 430,000 residents between 1990 and 2020. The consequences include poorer access to public services and longer commutes, among many others.

Between 1990 and 2020, the number of people living in Mexican cities doubled. Yet, the central areas of all cities lost 2.5 million residents! Happy to share our new article from Tec de Monterrey and @csh.ac.at: Scaling and Population Loss in Mexican Urban Centres www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Parte de estas presentaciones se basa en el trabajo que @gcampedelli.bsky.social, Alejandro Hope y yo publicamos hace unos años en @science.org, así como en las investigaciones y colaboraciones que surgieron posteriormente. Más detalles aquí: rafaelprietocuriel.com/violence/

Cada vez estoy más convencido de que debemos combinar el poder de buenos modelos matemáticos con bases sólidas en criminología, ciencias sociales y psicología para abordar el impacto de los cárteles no solo en México, sino también en muchos otros países.

Combatir a los cárteles es, por supuesto, complejo. Más allá de los retos evidentes del crimen organizado, hay otros: datos poco fiables, exposición a la violencia y la escasa atención científica que reciben los problemas del Sur Global.

En las últimas semanas tuve el honor de ser ponente magistral en dos conferencias internacionales sobre sistemas complejos: en la @system-dynamics.bsky.social y en @ic2s2.bsky.social. Presenté modelos sobre los cárteles mexicanos: reclutamiento, encarcelamiento y restricciones presupuestarias.

We detected that one of the most crucial parameters is the urban profile, which captures the location of tall buildings within a city. We define fine typical profiles: needle, pyramid, pancake (or flat cities), bowl, and ring.

I am happy to share Cities Morphology, a new @csh.ac.at project to analyze urban form parameters (such as sprawl) and their impact on commuting distances. Here you can explore the visualization, simulate different cities, and estimate the average commuting distance: vis.csh.ac.at/cities-morph...

Were you accepted to present at @css-conference.bsky.social, but cannot afford to travel to the USA? Apply for an #OpenArms grant! It covers the fee, travel, and accommodation for researchers from low- and middle-income countries. 7 days left to apply! ccs26.cssociety.org/registration...

Is it fair to ask a researcher based in the UK to pay the same membership fee for a scientific society as a researcher based in Bangladesh? Until now, they did! @css-conference.bsky.social has introduced a special membership fee of €1 per year. Here are more details: cssociety.org/membership/ 🗺️

Last week, I presented our sustainable mobility research to the @ec.europa.eu. The challenge: we focus too much on 🚗 use and too little on 🚗 ownership. Shifting trips to 🚶‍♀️ or 🚴 matters, but promoting ownership leaves the bigger problem intact. More on what we do at @csh.ac.at: citiesmoving.com

Mexico, as well as most countries in Latin America, will experience the impacts of an ageing population sooner and faster than other parts of the world. The defining problem of our time.

This traffic light in #Vienna gives cars 85 seconds of green light, but only 15 to pedestrians, not enough to cross the road! Our paper discusses how traffic lights favour car mobility in the city. @royalsociety.org @csh.ac.at @thewaroncars.bsky.social royalsocietypublishing.org/rsos/article...

By 2000, 175 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa had access to electricity, and by 2023, over 671 million did. That means that each day of this century, nearly 60,000 people in Sub-Saharan Africa gained access to electricity! From @ourworldindata.org ⚡️💡🔌

Faltó humildad. Un texto muy relevante de Eduardo Guerrero sobre la crisis de personas desaparecidas y no encontradas que se vive en México.

I had the honour of presenting the work that we do at @csh.ac.at on urban systems to Norman Foster and the 2026 cohort of urban planners at the Norman Foster Institute. It was deeply inspiring to see the legacy he has left in cities around the world. More about our work here: citiesmoving.com

Between 2000 and 2025, the number of private vehicles in Mexico nearly quadrupled, while the population increased by only 33%. More details here: datos.nexos.com.mx/el-inventari... 😱

This week, @nature.com published an article on how I use mathematical models to study what is otherwise very hard to measure: the scale and dynamics of cartels. How a mathematician is cracking open Mexico's powerful drug cartels. 👇🧮🧑‍🔬 www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Still a few days left to apply! The 15th Illicit Networks Workshop will be hosted by @csh.ac.at in Vienna on June 29–30, 2026. Themes include organised crime, gangs, trafficking, corruption, and more. 👉 Details & submission info: illicitnetworksworkshop.com

Nemesio Oseguera, El Mencho, fue abatido hace unas horas. Y con ello, se han desatado múltiples narcobloqueos en todo el país. Aquí puedes consultar un mapeo de los bloqueos registrados. Un gran trabajo de Aleph. ui.aliado.alephri.com

Su enorme reclutamiento es reflejo de políticas sociales y de seguridad fallidas. Durante años, hemos invertido poco y mal en seguridad y justicia. En 2022, por ejemplo, de todos los homicidios en la CDMX, nadie fue condenado. www.mexicoevalua.org/wp-content/u...

Si los cárteles son el quinto empleador y el principal reclutador, ¿deberíamos defenderlos por el empleo que generan? Por supuesto que no. El impacto que tienen es desastroso. Y debemos enfocar nuestros esfuerzos en reducir su fuerza y su capacidad de reclutamiento.

In our latest paper, with colleagues from the World Bank, we quantified how urban form shapes water access. Compact city growth could deliver piped water to 220 million more people and sewage services to 190 million more people in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. 💧🏙️ www.nature.com/articles/s44...

Instead of looking only at city size, we analysed the levels of isolation of a city (quantified either by the degree of a city or its weighted betweenness) and detected that people in isolated cities suffer a much higher violence rate.

Large cities are often assumed to be more violent, but our review shows there’s nothing universal about urban violence. In our new study, @ronaldomenezes.bsky.social and I show that isolated cities tend to experience higher rates of violence against civilians. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I am glad to be back at @ox.ac.uk to present the research of my team at @csh.ac.at on cities at @inetoxford.bsky.social! See you later today! 🌇 www.inet.ox.ac.uk/events/citie...

I analysed the modal share of nearly 400 European cities, comparing those with a metro, only a tram, and without any rail system. Large cities with a metro have roughly half the car share of cities served only by a tram. www.nature.com/articles/s44... Data: CitiesMoving.com

This week, we had the honor of welcoming @sergioaguayo.bsky.social and his team from Colmex to @csh.ac.at. Throughout the week, we discussed science, violence, migration, politics and more. This Wednesday, his column in Reforma was dedicated to complexity and violence. ⚗️🥼🔬

Maria Corina Machado - "for her tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy." 🕊️