Lawrence A. Herzog

The Cross-Border Metropolis in a Global Age: A Conceptual Model and Empirical Evidence from the US–Mexico and European Border Regions

In a globalising urban world, cross-border metropolises are important spatial configurations that reflect the interplay between the space of flows and the space of places. This article scrutinises the different logics at play as urbanisation occurs around international boundaries. It disentangles the contradictory “bordering dynamics” that shape cross-border urban spaces in the context of globalisation and territorial restructuring. Because national borders embody multifaceted as well as ambivalent roles and meanings, they can be viewed as critical barometers for understanding how globalisation impacts cross-border metropolitan space. The first two sections of the article explore the two globalisation processes—“debordering” and “rebordering”—that define the formation of cross-border metropolises. We view the border as a social and political construction; as such, we propose a conceptual framework that addresses the changing role and significance of boundaries in the making of cross-border metropolises. Finally, we offer two contrasting empirical case studies, one from the US–Mexico border, the other from a European border region. By studying bordering dynamics in San Diego–Tijuana and Geneva, we are able to draw some conclusions about the challenges faced by cross-border metropolitan spaces as well as some mechanisms that will govern their future organisation.

Border Commuter Workers and Transfrontier Metropolitan Structure Along the United States-Mexico Border

This article examines Mexican border commuter workers within the context of the emerging socio-geographical structure of metropolitan areas along the U.S.-Mexico boundary. While border commuters are, in a sense, part of the larger migrant labor pool that travels from Mexico to the United States, this study seeks to demonstrate that the Mexican commuter experience is part of a phenomenon unique to the border region, thus generating a research agenda that moves beyond the framework of general migration theory.

The transfrontier organization of space along the U.S.-Mexico border

Abstract The transfrontier dimensions of urban space in the U.S.-Mexico international border have not been extensively researched. The growth of large cities along the boundary, and the emerging high-volume patterns of transborder social, economic, and functional interaction, call for a better understanding of the unique spatial formations that are evolving in this region. We might term these spatial configurations ‘international border metropoli’, a fusion of settlements from two cultures into a single spatial domain. Transfrontier urban phenomena tend to somewhat alter the significance of the international boundary line. Using the San Diego-Tijuana region as a case study, evidence of transboundary spatial integration is reviewed. Special attention is given to patterns of transborder travel. Data extracted from a survey of Mexican border crossers allow for an examination of both the volume and the form of transboundary, intraurban linkages that connect and unify border settlements like San Diego and Tijuana.

USA-Mexico border cities: a clash of two cultures

In the second half of the 20th Century, one of the most rapidly urbanising regions of the World has been the 2000 mile-long international bound~lry zone shared by Mexico and the USA (Fig. i). During the period 1950-1970, cities on the US side of the border grew by 75%, while Mexico’s border towns increased by 197%) (Dillman. 1983). From 1970 to 1990, border scttlemcnts continued to expand: along tho US side, urban centrcs grew at an average rate of nearly 4% annually, well above the mean national growth rate of 1%; Mexico’s border cities grew at avcragc rates of bctwccn 5% and 6%, nearly twice the national average of 3.3% annual growth (Hcrzog, 1990). By 1990 at lcast three Mexican border metropolitan arcas Tijuana, Ciudad Juarcz and Mcxicali had p~?pul~~ti~)f~s cstimatcd to bc one million or higher, and another seven had bctwcen 100,000 and ~00,000 inhabitants. North of the boundary, the San Diego urbaniscd region’s population excccdcd 2 million in 1990, and at lcast five other US mutropolitan arcas along the border rcgistcrcd bctwcen 100,000 and 500,000 inhabitants. Early in the next century, some IO million US and Mexican citizens will live in cities along the border corridor. This dramatic demographic transformation has produced a unicluc scttlcmcnt pattern: the formation of functional metropolitan arcas that physically transcend international borders. Such circumstances have also generated serious questions about the management of cities in a boundary zone shared by two distinct national cultures, one developing and the other dsvelopcd. Clearly, in a zone that houses firstand second-order metropolitan centrcs, serious land use and cnvironmcntal planning problems arise. Problems, ranging from air pollution and sewage spills to traffic management. are not merely confined to a city in a single nation, but spill across an intcrn~~tional boundary. The result is that the management of urban problems can only be achieved through a combination of city planning and international diplomacy. Thus, town planning along the Mexico-USA boundary has a distinct transnational dimension. Few places in the World face the problem of resolving citylevel problems through foreign policy channels. There is considerable uncertainty along the US-Mexico border as to how serious environmental and land-use planning problems can bc rcsolvcd (Herzog, 1986). Some scholars feel that planning can bc achieved by creating cooperative planning agreements through international trcatics, as is done along Western European borders (Hansen, 1983). Others arc fess optimistic that such an approach can work along the Mexico-US border because of the vast economic disparities that separate the neighbouring nations (Friedmann and Morales, 1984). What does seem clear is that in order to understand city planning in this complex bi-national urbanised zone, it is necessary to understand the nature of urban structure in each nation. This article examines the built environment and

The Co-Mingling of Bordering Dynamics in the San Diego-Tijuana Cross-Border Metropolis

The focus of this paper is on the processes of debordering and rebordering and more specifically on what is happening when both forces encounter and confront their different interests. The hypothesis developed is that the two bordering dynamics are not only contesting each other, they also interact and co-mingle. An analytical framework based on the functional, structural and symbolic dimensions of borders is developed in order to generate hypotheses about how the co-mingling of the two forces takes place specifically on the ground. The case of San Diego-Tijuana demonstrates that the cross-border metropolis in the making is constantly changing and reinventing itself through the encounter of debordering and rebordering and the nesting of one category inside the other.

Why Walls Won't Work. Repairing the U.S.-Mexico Divide by Michael Dear (review)

approaches that take aim at the structural causes of disease and health inequalities. “Health in adversity” is something like the counterpart in a dialectic to “the culture of survival”: the capacity of Latin American public health professionals and institutions to achieve in spite of shortfalls in funding, lack of trained personnel, and shifting policy priorities. This all makes sense, but the scale of generalization is problematic: on the one hand, concepts like “the culture of survival” and “health in adversity” are so broad as to apply to public health work, universally; on the other hand, employing these concepts blurs a lot of the important distinctions in national public health histories narrated in previous chapters. As a result, the abstract “Latin America” discussed in the book’s Conclusion seems almost unrecognizable at times. Moreover, by dissolving rather than accentuating differences between national experiences, Cueto and Palmer avoid the kind of comparative analysis that might shed light on what kinds of policy decisions at specific historical junctures laid the foundations for public health “success stories” in some countries but not others. Despite these shortcomings, this book is a remarkable achievement. Few scholars other than Cueto and Palmer have the panoramic knowledge and analytical capacity required to even attempt to generalize from such a complicated transnational history, a challenge compounded by diverse historiographical currents and theoretical orientations. They discuss these broad currents in a comprehensive bibliographic essay that helpfully points readers to more specific lines of research. With translations in Spanish and Portuguese expected in the next few years, this book is likely to become a touchstone for any scholar interested in public health in Latin America.

Globalisation, Place and Twenty-First-Century International Border Regions: An Introduction to the Special Issue

As we move deeper into the twenty-first century, the forces of globalisation continue to transform both the spaces around international borders and the social processes and political dynamics within and between these spaces. The future of international border regions and societies is now a critical area of scholarly inquiry. The geographies of border regions have undergone a dramatic transformation over the last half century; nation-state boundaries grow ever more porous in many (though not all) areas of the planet. Global trade has become an accepted norm in business transactions almost everywhere. Coupled with the revolution in digital technology, the era of globalisation promises to continue to challenge old ideas with new approaches to understanding international boundaries and the regions they impact. Scholarly debates about globalising borders began heating up in the 1980s and 1990s, when the first wave of the “deterritorialisation discourse” flourished. Where borders had previously been viewed as barriers, emerging phenomena such as global manufacturing and transnational trade, combined with seasonal or permanent cross-border labour migration, led to an outpouring of fresh debates and novel perspectives. Borders were viewed as becoming “softer” as global processes transcended them, bringing societies on either side into closer socio-economic contact. The new discourse on borders was highlighted by studies of cross-border change in North America and Europe.