Last-Mile Logistics and the Future of Cities
Insights on urban logistics, retail, real estate development and the future of cities.
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- Issues
- 76
- Languages
- Spanish and English
- Latest issue
- October 12, 2026
Are we concentrating logistics in large distribution centers without measuring what it costs the city?
Every time I read about new logistics parks being built, large floor areas coming onto the market, or distribution centers with occupancy levels close to 100%, I find reasons to celebrate. These are significant…
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For years we repeated “location, location, location.” What if that is no longer enough today?
Throughout my business career there was a phrase that seemed to settle almost any real estate conversation: “Location, location, location.” I repeated it many times myself. And I still believe in it. A good location can completely change…
Real Estate Development
At what point does a building stop being a building… and start becoming a city?
We can invest millions in a mixed-use project and end up building several worlds that never meet. One entrance for living, another for working, another for shopping and another for parking. Everything works. Everything is properly solved…
Cities and Mobility
Everyone arrived at the same place… but not everyone came for the same reason
On one of my trips to Paris I took Metro Line 6 and got off at Bir-Hakeim. From there, a good part of the crowd seemed to be heading to the same point. The Eiffel Tower was right in front of us and, at first glance, one might think we were…
Retail and Commerce
The area looked the same… but it no longer was
I had walked through that area many times and, at first glance, it still looked the same. The same plots of land, the same streets, the same businesses as always. Until one day something stopped fitting. A shop had changed its activity. A…
Real Estate Development
Why do some places make us stay while others only make us pass through?
On one of my trips to Paris I ended up walking near the Seine. I had several places I wanted to see that day and my plan was to keep moving. But at one point I sat down. Just for a few minutes. Or so I thought. Quite a while later I was still there…
Cities and Mobility
The map said it was close. Walking, I discovered something else
In Zaragoza I ended up walking more than twenty kilometers in a single day. I hadn't set out intending to. I simply kept linking places I wanted to see and chose to cover a good part of the route on foot…
Real Estate Development
The same street can be three different cities in a single day
On one of my trips to Madrid I left the hotel early because I had a meeting a few hours later. And as I usually do when I'm in another city, I chose to walk. Not because I had to. Because I like to understand a city from the street…
Cities and Mobility
How many real estate opportunities are we missing around our metro stations?
We are capable of investing billions of dollars in building major transport infrastructure, but we are not always capable of anticipating everything that should develop around it…
Real Estate Development
Are we evaluating our investments at the wrong time?
We often visit a plot of land, look at its surroundings, check the access routes, and go back convinced we've found an excellent location. But what would happen if we returned to that same place at seven at night…
Real Estate Development
How do we design and build cities truly for people's everyday life?
Let's think for a moment about an ordinary day. We leave home. Some of us take our kids to school. We go to work. We buy something. We receive a delivery. Nothing extraordinary. It's simply our everyday life…
Cities and Mobility
How much more can an area grow before it loses what made it attractive?
There are areas we've all watched transform almost without noticing. We come back after a few years and find more buildings, restaurants, retail, offices and people. Land is worth more, new investment appears…
Cities and Mobility
When who lives in an area changes, everything else changes
There are parts of a city I knew twenty or thirty years ago that work in a completely different way today. When I walk back through some of them, I try not to focus only on the new buildings, land prices or full restaurants…
Cities and Mobility
What doesn't exist yet can be more important than what's already being built
When a major investment arrives in a city, almost all of us tend to look at the same things: how much will be invested, how many jobs it will create, how many people it will attract. I've done it too. But more and more…
Real Estate Development
Real-estate opportunities don't start when everyone can see them
Over the years I've learned that a real-estate opportunity rarely announces itself as such. Once the big projects arrive, prices start rising, new brands show up, and everyone starts talking about a given area, recognizing…
Real Estate Development
Cities with a human sense
Let's think for a moment about the city where we live. How long does it take us to get to work? What do we have nearby? How much do we walk? How much time do we spend each day just getting around? We've grown so used to…
Cities and Mobility
Before investing in a location, there's something the data won't tell you
We've never had so much information available to decide where to invest. Today we can know how much a square meter is worth, who lives around a location, how much they spend, how they move, where they shop, what competition…
Real Estate Development
We design cities without understanding how they work... Retail without understanding how the city moves, and Logistics without understanding either
For years we've specialized in doing our own part better and better. If we develop real estate, we study land, regulations, demand, product and returns. If we do retail, we analyze location, traffic, consumer, competition…
Cities and Mobility
HOW MUCH OF A PROPERTY'S VALUE IS BUILT ON THE STREET?
When we evaluate a plot of land, a retail space, a residential building, or a mixed-use project, we usually start with the familiar: Price per square meter. Zoning. Buildable area.…
Real Estate Development
THE FUTURE OF RETAIL IS NO LONGER DECIDED INSIDE THE STORE...IT'S DECIDED IN THE CITY.
For years we've spent a great deal of time thinking about what happens inside a store. The format. The assortment. The experience. The technology. The price. The square footage.…
Retail and Commerce
THERE ARE PLACES IN A CITY THAT BEGIN TO CHANGE LONG BEFORE WE CAN SEE IT.
It's probably happened to you before. You go back after a few years to a part of a city you knew well and find something different: More people. New…
Real Estate Development
THE BIGGEST RISK TO A CLASS A WAREHOUSE MIGHT BE OUTSIDE THE WAREHOUSE
For years we've learned to evaluate the quality of a logistics asset by looking inward. Height. Floors. Racking. Loading docks. Maneuvering yards. Fire-suppression systems.…
Urban Logistics
WHAT MAKES ONE CITY INVITE YOU TO LIVE IT — AND ANOTHER JUST HAVE YOU EAT AND LEAVE?
Some time ago I started asking myself a question every time I walk through a city. It has nothing to do with its buildings. Or how much the square meter costs. Not even…
Retail and Commerce
We've Had Months to Prepare Our Logistics. Are We Going to Wait for El Niño to Show Us Where We Failed?
For months we've talked about the El Niño phenomenon. We've read forecasts. We've followed official bulletins. We've heard warnings. But I think those of us who work in logistics…
Urban Logistics
Why Do Some Cities Invite Us to Walk and Enjoy Them, While Others Make Walking Difficult?
There are cities where you can walk for twenty minutes without noticing. And there are others where, after five minutes, you're already wondering why you didn't drive. For a long time…
Cities and Mobility
The Future of Logistics, Retail and Housing Starts With Understanding How a City Works
There's something that catches my attention more and more when I observe how we live and move through a city. A person leaves home. Walks a few blocks. Takes a bus, the metro,…
Retail and Commerce
The Biggest Problem With Our Cities Isn't How They Grow. It's How We Decide They Should Grow.
I'm more and more convinced that a city isn't built when construction begins. It's built much earlier. It's built every time we approve a zoning plan, set a regulation…
Cities and Mobility
A Developer's Biggest Mistake Isn't Choosing the Wrong Plot of Land.
Something completely changed the way I evaluate a project. And it didn't happen in front of a blueprint. Or while reviewing a market study. It happened while walking cities. For years…
Real Estate Development
The Opportunity Many Investors Haven't Spotted Yet
I'm increasingly convinced that Latin American cities have entered a new kind of competition. But it's not the one most people imagine. They're no longer competing to build the longest metro…
Real Estate Development
I Believe Real Estate Gets to the Right Place... Just Often at the Wrong Time.
For a long time I thought a project's value lay mainly in the land. Today I believe I was only looking at part of the story. When I started analyzing this site…
Real Estate Development
We've Spent Years Designing Cities We Never Learned to Read
How can anyone design a city without first learning to read it? I don't mean reading blueprints. Or indicators. Or renderings. I mean something far more important:…
Cities and Mobility
The Problem Isn't That Cities Keep Growing.
For years we've talked about urban growth as if it were the great challenge of our time. I don't think it is. Cities will keep growing. The population will keep…
Cities and Mobility
I Believe We've Spent Years Misunderstanding What a Sustainable City Really Means.
For years I thought a sustainable city was one that: Used less energy. Had more certified buildings. More electric vehicles. More solar panels. And…
Cities and Mobility
The Real Estate Market's Biggest Mistake Isn't Picking the Wrong Site. It's Arriving Too Late.
For many years I thought real estate development began with finding a good site. Like most people, I looked at location, access, zoning, demand and…
Real Estate Development
The City After the Metro
The pattern I found studying some of the world's most admired cities. For a long time I thought great urban transformations began with a major infrastructure…
Cities and Mobility
While Many Are Still Designing Buildings, the World's Most Advanced Cities Are Already Designing Urban Ecosystems
Something is quietly changing in the world's most innovative cities. And yet we still talk very little about it. For decades we developed projects by asking…
Cities and Mobility
Great Real Estate Opportunities Are Almost Never Obvious When They're Born
I want to ask you a question. When a city begins to transform... At what point do you think the great real estate opportunities are born? When the big…
Real Estate Development
The Most Valuable Thing a Metro Builds Isn't Underground
For a long time I thought a metro's greatest impact was cutting travel times. It was the most obvious explanation. Move more people. Reduce congestion.…
Cities and Mobility
Land Is No Longer the Most Important Asset in Real Estate Development
For decades, most of the real estate industry asked the same question before developing a project: Where is the land? Today, that question still matters…
Real Estate Development
Real Estate Will Never Be the Same Again
For decades we learned to divide real estate into categories. Housing. Retail. Offices. Logistics. Industrial. Hotels. Each sector evolved separately. Each…
Real Estate Development
Are We Evolving or Devolving as a City?
For decades we convinced ourselves we were evolving. We built taller buildings. Wider highways. Sprawling subdivisions. Bigger malls. Increasingly…
Cities and Mobility
Europe Already Changed the Question. Why Is Latin America Still Answering the Old One?
For years we've had the same conversation on repeat. That housing is scarce. That traffic keeps getting worse. That traditional retail is disappearing. That commute times keep…
Cities and Mobility
The City of the Future Might Look a Lot More Like the 1980s Neighborhood Than We Imagine
When we picture the city of the future, we usually imagine smart buildings, artificial intelligence, self-driving cars, or delivery drones. Yet, after…
Cities and Mobility
The Lens We're Using to Read the City No Longer Works
There's something I've been noticing over the past few years as I travel through different cities and talk with professionals in urban planning, architecture, real estate…
Real Estate Development
People Value a City When They Can Read It, Find Their Way, and Make It Their Own
A city isn't valued only for how many buildings it builds. It's valued for how easily it lets people live, walk, find their way, meet each other, and belong.…
Retail and Commerce
The New Urban Lesson: Infrastructure Only Transforms When It Builds City
For a long time we believed a city moved forward whenever it opened a major project. A new road. A station. A corridor. A bridge. A landmark building. A new mall.…
Real Estate Development
Building Buildings Is No Longer Enough: Lima Needs Projects That Build City
There are cities you remember with a feeling that's hard to put into words. Not necessarily because of the tallest building, or the most striking facade, or the most…
Cities and Mobility
The Future of Real Estate Projects Won't Sit on Top of the City… It Will Connect Beneath It
For decades, much of real estate development in Latin America focused on what's visible. More height. More square meters. More amenities. More architectural impact.…
Cities and Mobility
Lima's Real Estate Needle Is Starting to Swing East
Line 2, the Lima East Urban Development Plan, and new mixed-use projects are starting to reshape one of the capital's historically most underrated areas. For years, most of…
Real Estate Development
Architecture No Longer Designs Buildings. Today It Reads Urban Systems
For a long time, much of architecture focused on designing objects. Iconic buildings. Memorable facades. Volumes built to stand out on the skyline. And I'm not…
Cities and Mobility
No Road Infrastructure Can Sustain a Fragmented City
You can build more roads. More bypasses. More overpasses. More interchanges. But if housing, jobs, retail, services, logistics, education, and healthcare keep drifting…
Cities and Mobility
Lima's Urban Value Has Already Started Shifting Around Metro Line 2
Some time ago I began working on a very ambitious project around the Evitamiento Station on Lima Metro Line 2, with one clear idea in mind. I didn't want to develop…
Cities and Mobility
Time Is Becoming the Most Valuable Asset in Cities
After traveling through different cities and studying how their urban dynamics are evolving, one idea keeps getting clearer to me: the most competitive cities of the future…
Cities and Mobility
While the World Designs Cities Around Mobility… Lima Keeps Improvising
For years, in Lima we let the market decide where to grow. And afterward… we tried to figure out how to move millions of people within that model. First we built.…
Cities and Mobility
The Future of Cities Won't Be Residential, Commercial, or Logistics. It Will Be Hybrid
If you're evaluating projects only by asset class — residential, commercial, or logistics —… you're making decisions on incomplete information. And the most worrying…
Retail and Commerce
The Biggest Mistake in Mixed-Use Projects… Is Believing You Already Know How to Build Them
Many developers and architects with experience in large-scale or high-rise residential projects are convinced they can develop mixed-use projects. The same thing happens…
Real Estate Development
Some Areas of Lima No Longer Need a Diagnosis… They Need Decisions
Walking through the city, I've realized there are areas that no longer need more analysis. They need clarity. They need direction. Evitamiento and Nicolás Ayllón is one…
Cities and Mobility
What Madrid Understood in Time… Lima Still Doesn't Want to See at Evitamiento
Madrid Nuevo Norte isn't the model… but it explains why some nodes change a city before the market ever catches on. For years we've believed real estate value lives in…
Cities and Mobility
A Mixed-Use Project Isn't Measured by What It Mixes… but by How It Works
For years we've repeated an idea almost no one questions. That mixing housing, retail, offices and services is enough to build city. That the more complete the program…
Real Estate Development
The 2026 Real Estate Boom Has Already Begun… Just Not Where Everyone Is Looking
While many are still waiting for clear signals to move, I want you to pause for a moment and look at something different. Lima's real estate market has already begun to change. But…
Real Estate Development
The Biggest Mistake in Real Estate Today
…is still analyzing the city as it was, not as it's starting to become. There's something Lima's real estate market keeps doing — and that made sense until recently — making decisions from validation…
Real Estate Development
Lima's Greatest Real Estate Potential… Is Where the Market Still Isn't Looking
There's something Lima's real estate market still refuses to accept. The city has already changed. But we keep analyzing it as if it hadn't. While most people keep looking for opportunities…
Real Estate Development
Lima: Turning Its Back on the Sea… and Now on Its River and Its Metro Too
For years it was said that Lima lived with its back to the sea. And it was true. The city grew ignoring its most valuable edge… until it finally turned to face it and turned it into one of…
Cities and Mobility
What If Lima's Real Estate Market Is Pricing the City Wrong?
Lima is filling up with projects. Residential. Mixed-use. Retail. Logistics. More is being built. More is being invested. More is being sold. But there's a question almost no one is asking…
Real Estate Development
The Invisible Mistakes of Real Estate Development
You can do everything right… and still develop a bad project. Not for lack of investment. Not for lack of design. But because of something much harder to spot: 👉 not understanding the city…
Real Estate Development
What Buenos Aires Already Went Through… Lima Still Hasn't Fully Grasped
There are cities that have already been through this. Buenos Aires. Santiago. Bogotá. Not as theory. As reality. In Buenos Aires, the subway's expansion didn't just improve mobility…
Cities and Mobility
Lima Stopped Growing Like a Neighborhood
If you develop, invest in or analyze real estate in Lima, there's something you can no longer ignore: 👉 the city stopped growing like a neighborhood. And that completely changes how you should…
Cities and Mobility
What Do You Need to Understand Before Conceiving a Mixed-Use Project?
1. Understand the city before the site. Before thinking about the project, you have to understand the city it will sit in. That means knowing how people move, what the real…
Real Estate Development
What Happened to Lima… and When Did We Stop Building City?
Lima didn't become chaotic overnight. It wasn't one bad call. It wasn't a single flawed decision. It was something more complex. It was the sum of many decisions… and, above all,…
Cities and Mobility
What If the Future of Last-Mile Delivery Isn't More Trucks, But the Metro?
For decades, metro stations were conceived purely as places to pass through. Spaces designed to move people from one point in the city to another. But in many cities around the…
Urban Logistics
When We Treat Logistics as Something Foreign to the City
For years we've thought of urban logistics as an operational problem. Something to be "solved" so it doesn't affect the city too much. That's where the mistake lies. When a…
Urban Logistics
Urban Logistics Is Using the City as Infrastructure
Over the past few years, urban logistics — retail, mass consumption, hard discount, traditional distribution, and eCommerce — has done exactly what the market demanded of it:…
Urban Logistics
WHEN THE METRO BECOMES A LOGISTICS NETWORK
There are cities that never stop, and Shenzhen is one of them. During the day, its metro pulses with the usual energy of any major city: thousands of people flowing in and…
Urban Logistics
What Is a Buffer Warehouse, and Why Are They Essential to Modern Logistics?
In urban logistics, there's infrastructure you don't always see, but that turns out to be essential for everything to work. One of them is the buffer warehouse — or "almacén…
Urban Logistics
Geointelligence Applied to Urban Logistics Warehouses: From Chance to Strategy
For many years, the choice of location for urban warehouses had more to do with the availability of cheap peripheral land than with any real strategic analysis. Sites were…
Urban Logistics
The Future of Last-Mile Delivery Will Be Hybrid
For years, the conversation around last-mile delivery came down to two questions: who delivers faster? and who does it cheaper? That framing shaped strategies, investments,…
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