Land Scarcity in CDMX: Why the Future of Parking Is Residential

Mexico City has hit a wall. We are quite literally running out of ground. With only about 38,454ha of buildable land left and most of it already tapped out, the capital is facing a territorial chokehold. This isn't just driving housing prices through the roof, it is forcing an unsustainable level of urban inefficiency.

In a city where every square meter is a luxury, dedicating virgin land to "car storage" isn't just a strategic mistake. It is a massive roadblock to economic development.

As a professional focused on scaling businesses and optimizing operations, I have learned one thing: When physical resources hit their limit, technology is the only way out. We don’t need more concrete. We need to unlock the doors of what is already built, specifically in the residential sector.

The Opportunity Cost of Asphalt

The amount of wasted land is staggering. According to the Mexican Institute for Competitiveness (IMCO), an analysis of 251 new developments showed that 42% of the total built area was used exclusively for parking. Think about that. Nearly half of the investment and space in this city is for cars, not for people or productive businesses.

This over-dependence on parking spots has created a critical housing deficit. While Milenio reports that CDMX needs between 50,000 and 60,000 new homes every year, we only produce about 10,000 to 15,000. We are prioritizing cars over citizens. As Ruiz-Healy Times puts it, this is effectively a "car subsidy" that kills urban density and makes the city more expensive for everyone.

The Million-Spot Paradox

Here is the real kicker. We complain about the lack of parking, but the inventory is already there. It is just hidden.

Figures published by Máspormás show that CDMX has roughly 6.5 million parking spots for a fleet of 5.5 million cars. That is a theoretical surplus of 1 million empty spaces sitting idle behind residential gates.

To me, this "dead asset" is the biggest business opportunity of the century. We don’t need to dig deeper into the subsoil. We need a digital layer that connects this underutilized residential infrastructure with real-time demand.

Parkeo: Unlocking Existing Infrastructure

At Parkeo, we built a solution for this scarcity based on the sharing economy. If there is no more land to build on, the logical move is to turn every private garage into an intelligent node in the mobility network. 

We turn a liability, such as the maintenance and taxes of an empty spot, into an income stream. According to Reporte Índigo, drivers using shared parking platforms can cut their costs by up to 40% compared to traditional lots. Meanwhile, owners finally monetize space that was previously worthless.

• Zero-CAPEX Optimization: Unlike traditional parking lots that require millions in investment and years of construction, our model scales using the infrastructure that is already standing.

• Ending "Cruising" Traffic: Traffic in CDMX costs about MX$33 billion (US$1.8 billion) a year in lost productivity, according to Arena Pública. By allowing digital reservations in residential spots, we eliminate "cruising" (cars circling blocks looking for a spot). This slashes both congestion and emissions.

• Trust and Security: We built verification processes that allow residential buildings to open their doors to validated users. This integrates technology into the community safely.

The bottom line: Urbanism is now collaborative.

The era of horizontal expansion is over. There is nowhere left to go. The future of Mexico City depends on our ability to be smarter with the square meters we already own.

Leveraging underutilized residential inventory is the most efficient, profitable, and logical way to fix our land crisis. At Parkeo, our mission is to rescue the city from "dead asphalt." We are proving that in a metropolis running out of land, sharing is the only way to keep growing.

As Parkeo’s founder, I invite you to try our services and participate in this collaborative economy.

Are you interested in optimizing the performance of your real estate assets? I’d love to share how we are transforming land use through technology.

carlos@parkeo.mx