In the case of Mexico, eight of every 10 Mexicans live in urban areas and six of every 10 lives in a metropolitan area. Nearly 64 million Mexicans (56.8 per cent of the total population according to the Census of 2010 from INEGI) live in metropolitan areas that span 367 municipalities.
The document delimitation of the metropolitan areas in Mexico 2010, based on the Census of the INEGI, showed that in the country there are 29 metropolitan areas from 100 to 499 thousand inhabitants; 19 inhabited by more than 500 thousand and less than a million people; 10 metropolis that exceed 1 million inhabitants, but do not exceed 5 million, and a mega-city, the Valley of Mexico, more than 20 million and is the fifth largest city in the world.
The case of Mexico the trend towards urbanization is present worldwide, whose urban population already exceeds 50 percent, but is Latin America and the Caribbean, with nearly 80 percent of its population resided in cities, the most urbanized region of the planet.
Water.
In 50 years, the population living in cities has tripled and is now facing severe problems of mobility, housing, insecurity, poverty, lack of water and governance, among others. The cities with the largest populations already experiencing shortages of water that can affect their socio-economic and environmental systems. An important measure to combat the shortage of the liquid is the treatment of waste water in cities, which currently are mostly sent to rural areas.
Mobility.
Study that makes the UN points out that in the last 10 years the vehicle fleet growth of 9 percent annually, with 80 percent private transport, which meets only 30 percent of the disabled.
INEGI figures show that a fifth of workers in Mexico it takes them more than 3 hours move from your home to your employment.
It is estimated that there are nearly 30 million cars in Mexico. In the 59 metropolitan areas, 30 percent of travel is done walk, public transport 40 and 30 in the car, whose average speed during "non peak" in the city of Mexico barely reaches 15 kilometers per hour.
The Mexican Association of the automotive industry reported that only in 2011 it sold 900,000 automobiles. And it is estimated that for 2030, the number of cars reach 65 billion.
Dwelling.
The Inter-American Development Bank said this year the main problems of housing in the cities of Latin America and the Caribbean: lack of access to infrastructure, poor materials, lack of secure tenure, overcrowding and quantitative deficit.
4 percent lacks electricity, 15 per cent of sanitation and drinking water 9. Also, 3 percent have poor roof, 6 per cent dirt floors and 2 per cent walls in poor condition.
The developments lack social and commercial services that do not lead to the creation of social fabric.
Insecurity.
Social insecurity is a current problem. Among the causes of insecurity are detected, is the unemployment affecting a large number of people; persons against property and the physical integrity of the citizens are often not having a stable job that guarantees them enough income to support his family.
Solid waste.
According to INEGI, until 2010, in Mexico generated 109 thousand day 750 tons of waste, of which 27 per cent were deposited in sites not controlled, 64 percent came to landfills and 9 percent to controlled earth-filled.
35.3 million tons of solid waste are generated annually. In accordance with the University's environmental program of the UNAM, landfills have been declared obsolete in developed countries, despite that in Mexico there are 95.
Just at beginning of year the Mexican capital suffered a crisis of garbage in the streets by failures in the pickup that caused the closure of the Bordo Poniente, whose capacity to store garbage ranked it as the largest in Latin America.