The Atlantic and Univision have officially launched CityLab Latino, a Spanish-language version of The Atlantic's urban-focused news and lifestyle site.
Originally announced in November, CityLab Latino is now live on Univision.com with a trio of original stories alongisde translated versions of a number of CityLab articles. Juan Pablo Garnham, a veteran of New York-based newspaper El Diario, leads the Miami-based editorial staff.
The launch marks the first non-English initiative undertaken by The Atlantic and adds to Univision's growing stable of digital properties, including Fusion, The Root, Variety Latino—a similarly-styled English-to-Spanish content partnership—and The Onion, which the Spanish-language media giant raised eyebrows by purchasing in January.
As reported in November, ad revenues from CityLab Latino will be split evenly among the two companies.
A note posted on CityLab's website and credited to both Garnham and CityLab editor Sommer Mathis states:
"We created CityLab Latino with a single aim: to broaden our coverage of the most important ideas and pressing issues facing today’s cities and neighborhoods, with an emphasis on the Spanish-speaking world. We’ll focus especially on topics such as affordable housing and transportation, crime, immigration, rising sea levels, architecture, and urban design in the global cities where Spanish is spoken."
While record numbers of Hispanics in the U.S. are proficient in English, the Pew Research Center concludes that about one-third still speak English either "less than very well" or not at all, and only about one-quarter exclusively speak English at home. Moreover, 44 percent of Hispanics in the U.S. live in the top ten largest metropolitan areas by Hispanic population, most of which are in California and Texas (with the exceptions of New York, Chicago, Phoenix, and Miami).
