Puerto Vallarta spread north toward Ixtapa and Las Juntas as its historic center lost residents. Census data show how growth reshaped the bay.
Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, November 13, 2026 – Puerto Vallarta spread north toward Ixtapa and Las Juntas as its historic center lost thousands of residents. A study from Tecnológico de Monterrey puts Vallarta among the Mexican cities that spread outward especially fast for the number of people they added between 1990 and 2020.
The study, presented Tuesday at Harvard Kennedy School, used four censuses to map where people lived at different distances from each city’s historic center. Across the 69 metro areas in the published paper, central areas had about 2.5 million fewer residents in 2020 than in 1990. Their share of the population fell from more than 40% to 22%.
Where Vallarta grew
The metro area, which includes Puerto Vallarta and Bahía de Banderas, grew from about 151,000 people to 479,000, according to the federal census tables. On the Nayarit side, Bahía de Banderas went from about 40,000 residents to nearly 188,000.
The two municipalities’ land-use plan shows where that growth went. By 2020, the developed area covered about 12,200 hectares, more than triple its 1990 footprint. On the Jalisco side, development extended into the Río Ameca valley and reached Ixtapa and Las Juntas. Across the river, it spread along the corridor from Mezcales to San José del Valle. The plan documents farmland loss and the growth of settlements away from public services.
Fewer neighbors downtown
The decline in Vallarta’s historic center was already well underway by 2010. In a 2017 study of the Centro Histórico, Universidad de Guadalajara urban researcher José Alfonso Baños Francia counted 13,701 residents in 1990 and 8,771 in 2010. That’s a drop of 36% in 20 years. He linked the decline to changes in how downtown buildings were used as businesses catering to visitors moved into properties that had been homes.
Roberto Ponce-López, a coauthor of the national study, explained that expensive land makes it harder to build affordable homes in central areas. Households looking to buy their first home often find one farther out, he said. In Vallarta, residents marched to the Malecón in 2025 over housing costs, pointing to luxury development and short-term rentals.
The two ends of that growth now have different projects on the books. In August 2025, Puerto Vallarta’s city council created a temporary commission to revitalize the Centro Histórico, with a term that runs through September 2027. Out in the valley, the Amado Nervo Bridge opened October 28. Drivers between Ixtapa and San Vicente now have a toll-free crossing over the Río Ameca and an alternative to Federal Highway 200.
