T-Squared: Meet our new Dallas-based urban affairs reporter

Journalist Juan Pablo Garnham is obsessed with cities. He is an optimist who believes that by living in close proximity, people can solve problems that would otherwise be more difficult. He also loves the thrill of discovering new corners of a city. He has lived in New York City — his current home — plus Miami, Milwaukee and London, as well as several parts of his native Chile: Santiago, Concepción, Viña del Mar and Puerto Williams, the southernmost town in the world.

I'm happy to say that his next move will be to Dallas, where he'll be based as The Texas Tribune's next urban affairs reporter.

In that position, he'll tell stories about the challenges facing large metro areas — and the people living in them — in a rapidly diversifying state that is home to six of the nation's biggest cities. His reporting will take him to Fort Worth, Austin, San Antonio, Houston, El Paso, McAllen and beyond. He'll write about poverty, housing affordability, persistent segregation, socioeconomic mobility, transportation and state-local relations.

These are stories that Juan Pablo — who has 14 years of experience as a reporter, editor and journalism teacher in Latin America and the United States — is well prepared to tell.

As the editor of CityLab Latino, a joint venture between The Atlantic and Univision, he wrote about how Rio de Janeiro's smart-city vision could make its inequality troubles worse, problems behind the collapsed pedestrian bridge in Miami, what Madrid is doing to address women's safety and the lost Latino murals of Los Angeles. At El Diario in New York, the oldest Spanish-language daily newspaper in the United States, he covered Bill de Blasio's mayoral administration.

Now, as senior producer of the podcast "In The Thick," he focuses on politics and race from the perspective of people of color. Meanwhile, he teaches bilingual students at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York. Previously, he worked in New York at NY1 Noticias and in Chile at Qué Pasa magazine and El Mercurio newspaper.

At the Tribune, he will be filling the role previously held by Brandon Formby, who was promoted to an editing job in Austin. Juan Pablo — whose interests include watching soccer, listening to podcasts and finding great breweries — can't wait to explore Dallas and other Texas cities. He starts June 3. Meanwhile, you can start following him on Twitter. We're thrilled he's heading to Texas, and we look forward to the stories he'll find as he dives into our urban areas.