David López-García
Assistant Professor
Department of Urban Planning and Policy
Pronouns: he/him/él
Contact
- Building & Room:
- CUPPA Hall, Suite 215, Office 217
- Address:
- 412 S Peoria St., Chicago, Illinois.
- Office Phone:
- 312-355-1819
Email:
Related Sites:
Courses taught at UIC
US 100 – Concepts in Geography.
US 220 – Latin American Cities in a Global Context.
UPP 506 – Plan Making Studio.
UPP 508 – Global Urbanization and Planning.
UPP 517 – Regional and Metropolitan Wide Planning.
About
My research examines urban restructuring in Latin America through the lens of development models, dependency theory, and the sociology of public action. I investigate how national and local development strategies shape urban space, urban governance, and the capacity of planning institutions to address urban development. A central concern of my work is exploring how development trajectories and unequal positions within the global political economy may simultaneously generate urban development challenges while constraining the state's capacity to confront them.
I also contribute to an emerging school of critical accessibility studies, examining how urban restructuring and socioeconomic inequality may shape people's actual access to urban opportunities. My work uses commuting as a form of observed accessibility to reveal how the same urban region produces profoundly different experiences of access across places and populations. More broadly, I examine accessibility as a socially differentiated outcome of urban development rather than simply a measure of the ease of reaching destinations.
I am an Editor of Area Development and Policy, a journal of the Reginal Studies Association (RSA). I founded the Urban Structure Lab (USL), I am a Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Urban Economic Development (CUED), and I am an Affiliate Researcher at the Great Cities Institute (GCI). At UPP, I teach in the Economic Development area of specialization.
Selected Grants
Institute for Research on Race and Public Policy (IRRPP), University of Illinois Chicago, "Race, travel time, and quality job access in Chicagoland: Comparing models of job accessibility with actual commuting burden", Principal Investigator ($10,000 USD)
Gao-Zhang for Geospatial Technologies Research Award. University of Illinois Chicago, Comparative analysis of multiple methods of employment subcenter detection, Co-Principal Investigator ($19,000 USD)
World Vision, Advancing targeting through a spatial lens: An exploration of the spatial determinants of success and failures in the implementation of the SPIR I project in Ethiopia, Principal Investigator ($53,620 USD)
Brasillinois Research Grants Competition. FAFESP and University of Illinois System, Mapping the Evolution of Urban Spatial Structures in Brazilian and US Metropolitan Areas: Establishing A Collaborative Project for Theoretical and Empirical Innovation, Co-Principal Investigator ($17,750 USD)
Selected Publications
Peer review journals
Lopez-García, D. (2026) The journey to work as observed accessibility: Job access within employment subcenters in greater Mexico City. Cities, 178, 107365.
López-García, D., Hernandez, D., & Sánchez-Vargas, A. (2026). Mobility situations in Mexico City Metropolitan Zone: An exploration of time and distance in the journey to work through machine learning. Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science, Online First, published on February 19, 2026.
Villamizar, N., Ardila, A.M., López-García, D. & Hernández, D. (2025) The ‘accessibility turn’ in urban research: Contributions from Latin America and the Global South. Area Development and Policy, 10(2), 149-161.
Heathcott, J. & López-García, D. (2025) Design Highs and Policy Lows in the Making of New Public Space in Mexico City. Journal of Urbanism: International Research on Placemaking and Urban Sustainability, 18(3), 483-506.
López-García, D. (2024) Diverging mobility situations in Greater Mexico City: Exploring the factors behind the mobility situations of public transport commuters. Urban Studies, 61(10), 1849-1870.
Baker, D. & López-García, D. (2024) Do shifts in the racial and ethnic composition of a neighborhood lead to extreme changes in commuting times? Evidence from New York City. Travel Behavior and Society, 36, 100775.
López-García, D. & Heathcott, J. (2024) Showcase Politics: The production and distribution of new public space in Mexico City. Journal of Urban Affairs. 46(4), 772-790.
López-García, D. & Baker, D. (2023) Diverging Mobility Situations: Measuring Relative Job Accessibility and Differing Socioeconomic Conditions in New York City. Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 113(1), 149-168.
Whitney, R. & López-García, D. (2023) Fast-track institutionalization: The opening of urban planning best practice agencies in Mexico City. Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space, 41(3), 600-616.
López-García, D. & Gómez-Álvarez, D. (2022) Estructura urbana del Área Metropolitana de Guadalajara, 1999-2019: Un análisis de subcentros de empleo [Urban structure of Guadalajara Metropolitan Area, 1999-2019: An analysis of employment subcenters]. Estudios Demográficos y Urbanos, 37(2), 427-481.
Authored books
López-García, D. (2023) Worker mobility and urban policy in Latin America: Policy interactions and urban outcomes in Mexico City. New York and Abingdon: Routledge.
Edited books
López-García, D., Villamizar, N., Ardila, A. & Vecchio, G. (in contract). Urban Planning and Accessibility in Latin America: Spatial, Mobile, and Socio-Cultural Dimensions. Routledge Advances in Regional Economics, Science, and Policy. New York and Abingdon: Routledge.
Working papers
López-García, D., Wilson, M.D., Jain, K., Man, M., Javidi, N. & Pilegar, E. (2024) Review of methods for the identification of employment subcenters and their application in the Chicago Metropolitan Statistical Area. Working Paper No. 01, Urban Structure Lab, University of Illinois Chicago.
Ramos F., Lopez-García, D. & Biderman, C. (2025) Three decades of transformation in the urban structure of the São Paulo Metropolitan Area. Urban Structure Lab, University of Illinois Chicago.
Book chapters
López-García, D., Whitney, R. & Heathcott, J. (2025) Institucionalización fast-track y política de vitrina como estrategias para la consolidación de innovaciones en la gestión urbana [Fast-track institutionalization and showcase politics as strategies to consolidate urban innovations]. In Cesar Rentería and David Gómez-Álvarez (Eds.), Pensar fuera de la caja burocrática: espacios para la innovación pública en América Latina. University of Guadalajara Press.
López-García, D. (2024) Desarrollo Urbano en las Áreas Metropolitanas en Jalisco: Tendencias en la evolución de su estructura urbana e implicaciones para la calidad de la vida [Urban development in Jalisco Metropolitan Areas: Trends in the trajectory of urban spatial structure and implications for quality of life]. In Adrián Acosta (Ed.), Jalisco, mañana: Proyecto de actualización de Jalisco a Futuro, visión 2050. University of Guadalajara Press.
López-García, D. (2023) Trajectorias residenciales y experiencia de movilidad en la Zona Metropolitana de la Ciudad de México [Housing pathways and the mobilty experience of workers in Mexico City]. In Pablo Elinbaum and Gonzalo Sanz Cerbino (Eds.), Espacio, Tecnología y Acumulación: La construcción de una agenda de investigación para los estudios urbano-regionales. Buenos Aires: CONICET, CEUR.
López-García, D. (2023) Desigualdades en el viaje al trabajo en la Zona Metropolitana de la Ciudad de México [Inequalities in the journey to work in Mexico City]. In Martha Schteingart, Clara Salazar, and Jaime Sobrino (Eds.), Desigualdades Territoriales: Miradas Cruzadas. México: El Colegio de México.
López-García, D. (2023) El transporte público masivo: accesibilidad y exclusión social [Mass public transport: Accessibilty and social exclusion]. In David Gómez-Álvarez et al (Eds.). Jalisco a medio camino: Balance parcial 2018-2021. Volumen I, Políticas públicas locales. Guadalajara: Universidad de Guadalajara.
López-García, D. (2022) Building Inequality: Infrastructure and Intra-Urban Inequality in the Capitalist City. In Deljana Iossifova, Yahya Gamal and Alexandros Gasparatos (Eds.), Urban Infrastructuring: reconfigurations, transformations, and sustainability in the Global South. Singapore: Springer Nature.
Reports
López-García, D., Tilahun, N. & Nawaz, M.S. (2025) Intervention targeting through a spatial lens: Exploring the relationship between spatial elements and the outcomes of the SPIR I project in Ethiopia. Technical Report. World Vision, University of Illinois Chicago.
López-García, D. & Lowe, K. (2025) Race, travel time, and earnings in Chicagoland: Comparing predicted job accessibility with the commuting burden of public transit. Working Paper No. 02, Urban Structure Lab, University of Illinois Chicago.
López-García, D. (2022) How just is public transport in African Cities? Nairobi: Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES).
Publication Aggregators
Professional Leadership
Editorial Coordinator, Latin American Chapter of the International Network for Transport and Accessibility in Low-Income Communities (INTALInC-LAC).
Co-Coordinator, Urban Structure Lab at UIC
Co-Chair, Planners of Color Interest Group (POCIG), Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning (ACSP)
Education
Ph.D. in Public and Urban Policy, The New School.
M.Phil. in Public and Urban Policy, The New School.
M.S. in Comparative Public Policy, FLACSO-México.
B.A. in Management, Universidad de Guadalajara.
Research Currently in Progress
- Evolution of urban spatial structure in Latin American urban regions and its implications for the geography of opportunity.
- Economic development models, dependency, and urban restructuring in Latin America.