Journal of Borderlands Studies

Volume 22 • No. 1 • Spring 2007

Cross-Border Planning at the U.S.-

Mexico Border: An Institutional Approach
Sergio Peña*

Abstract: The general objective of this article is to contribute to the understanding of cross-
border issues from an urban planning perspective. Cross-border planning in this article is ap-
proached as an institution-building process whose primary emphasis is on the facilitation of
collective action with regards to the shared natural, built, and human environments constrained
by territorial politics and boundaries of nation-states. It is argued throughout the paper that the
existing institutional framework at the U.S.-Mexico border has been the result of a “muddling
through” process. The existing cross-border planning institutions are the result of an adjustment
process, to a great extent due to challenges to the status quo by border actors and organizations.
The main conclusion of the article is that the environment and the uncertainty that this poses for
the future is an issue that decision makers have been able to “muddle through” more success-
fully and should continue doing so by fine-tuning and supporting existing institutions and con-
tinuing the incremental process of institution building.

Introduction

The general objective of this article is to contribute to the understanding of cross-

border issues from an urban planning perspective. The presence of relatively large
urban binational conurbations, such as San Diego-Tijuana and El Paso-Ciudad Juarez
to mention only few, makes the U.S.-Mexico border unique. Thus, it is important not
only to make urban settlements an important subject of inquiry but also to discuss how
urban planning can contribute to improving the quality of life of border residents.
Cross-border planning, in this article, is approached as an institution-building pro-
cess whose primary emphasis is on the facilitation of collective action with regards to
the shared natural, built, and human environments constrained by territorial politics
and boundaries of nation-states. This approach to cross-border planning closely re-
sembles what Lindblom (1996) calls the science of “muddling through” where deci-
sion-making is done in an incremental fashion.
According to Lindblom (1996, 291), incremental planning is a method that is “con-
tinually building out from the current situation step by step and by small degrees.” In
other words, decision-making is a process that adjusts to existing circumstances and
changes in societal values that challenge the status quo and which demand a new insti-
tutional framework (Bromley 2006). It is argued throughout the paper that the existing
institutional framework at the U.S.-Mexico border has been the result of a “muddling
through” process. That is, existing cross-border planning institutions are the result of
an adjustment process that, to a great extent, is due to challenges to the status quo by
border actors and organizations.

*Peña* is Professor of Public Administration at the University of Texas at El Paso,

El Paso, Texas.

1
2 Cross-Border Planning at the U.S.-Mexico Border: An Institutional Approach

The article focuses on analyzing and describing the process through which institu-
tional change takes place as well as the constraints and challenges cross-border plan-
ning faces. A multidisciplinary approach is taken in this article drawing not only from
the field of urban planning but also from institutional economics, international rela-
tions, public administration, and policy.
The remainder of the article is divided into four sections. The first section presents
an analysis of what cross-border planning is to give the reader a better sense of the
uniqueness of the field. The second section describes in more detail the institution
building process using the environment as a case study. The third section brings na-
tional politics and structures as contextual variables to analyze the effect they have on
the cross-border planning agenda. The final section discusses how existing asymme-
tries between the U.S. and Mexico make the “muddling through” process more diffi-
cult and cumbersome.

Cross-Border Planning: A Conceptual Framework

The objective of this section is to discuss specific elements that define cross-bor-
der planning. This author concurs with Herzog’s (2000) argument that cross-border
planning is best understood by making the urban element the central focus. The central
task of cross-border planning is to build institutions to manage transboundary flows
(people, goods, services, etc.) and their spillovers on the social and natural environ-
ment mediated by the way the built environment is developed.

Cross-Border Planning Vis-à-vis Metropolitan Planning

A method of defining a subject is by specifying its parts (i.e. what is in it) or by

setting boundaries (i.e. what is not in). Boundary specification is a useful method to get
a sense of what cross-border planning is all about. As a starting point, it is important to
differentiate cross-border planning from traditional metropolitan regional planning even
though both fields deal with urban conurbations that extend beyond political bound-
aries.
According to Levy (2003, 270), metropolitan planning focuses on the “set up [of
a] metropolitan area wide mechanism that has the capacity to do effective planning…
metropolitan planning organizations succeed only to the extent that the local and state
political establishments…see the regional organization as useful in meeting their needs.”
Furthermore, it is important to add the constitutional/legal issue to the discussion be-
cause it is a central element to differentiate cross-border planning from metropolitan
planning.
Taking planning in the U.S. as an example to illustrate the above issue, the consti-
tution delegates two important powers to the states—eminent domain and police power.
These powers, in turn, are delegated by the states to local governments through the so
called Dillon’s rule (Levy 2003; Peña 2002). Urban planning as a profession in the
U.S. essentially rests in these two powers. Several states have approached metropolitan
planning by creating special purpose governments such as water and school districts,
councils of governments (COGs), metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs), etc.
The federal government in the U.S. does not have jurisdiction over land use decisions.
However, through a series of policy tools (federal mandates, money allocation, and
other stick and carrot policies) the federal government encourages regional coopera-
Volume 22 • No. 1 • Spring 2007 Journal of Borderlands Studies 3

tion with indirect implications for land use. Every action takes place within a formal/
legal institutional framework with the premise of respecting territorial sovereignty (Peña
2002).
Urban conurbations that spill across international borders essentially face urban
issues (transportation, water supply, capital facilities, air quality, economic develop-
ment, etc.) that are similar to any metropolitan area in the U.S., Mexico, or Europe.
However, binational conurbations lack a “leviathan,” or agent, that would undertake
the function of being a big planner and impose regulations and sanctions. Cross-border
planning institutions lack two of the most important planning tools—eminent domain
and police power. In addition, the planning bureaucracy also lacks two key elements
that Weber (Shafritz 1987, 81-87) sees as essential: formal rules and written procedure
delegated to it. As a result, norms replace laws. Because actors across borders see net
benefits by coordinating actions and cooperating, informal institutions emerged, filling
the vacuum left by formal ones.

Cross-Border Planning and Institution Building

Normally, existing institutions that provide the bases for some type of cross-bor-
der planning conform to the Westphalian logic of politics in the international arena.
Treaties are the result of negotiations between nation-states and pay more attention to
“high politics;” there is no difference between the national and regional interest. In
sum, cross-border urban planning is overlooked by the “high-politics” (e.g. national
security, drugs, etc.) of the nation-state. The question then becomes how local actors
can develop institutions (rules and norms) that foster cooperation and coordination to
deal with “low-politics” issues (air quality, solid waste, congestion, sewage, etc.).
Ostrom (1990) correctly points out that, normally, when it comes to the study of
institutions as a source that regulates behavior and people’s actions (North 1990), there
is a tendency to think that only two options are available—the market or government.
If the market and government are absent, then the outcome is a Hobbesian world of a
“state of nature” characterized by anarchy and survival (e.g. Iraq after the fall of Saddam
Hussein). The fact of the matter is that there are other types of institutional arrange-
ments beyond the market and the state that provide governance and order.
North (1990, 3) defines institutions as “humanly devised constraints that shape
human interaction.” These constraints can be formal, entrusting the government to en-
force them; or informal, where norms are devised by groups and enforced socially.
Several authors (Granovetter 1985; Coleman 1988; and Ostrom 1990) have studied the
role of institutions governed by social norms as regulatory mechanisms. These institu-
tions either complement or fill vacuums left by formal constitutional rule, creating
alternative mechanisms of governance to the market and the state.
A fundamental question needs to be posed: What is the function these alternative
mechanisms of organization and regulation offer? Williamson (1981), North (1990),
and Ostrom (1990) provide the answer—transaction costs. The concept of transaction
costs is extremely useful to understand cross-border institutions and how these could
facilitate cross-border flows through better planning of the built environment.
The scale of flows is what defines cross-border processes (Alegria 1989). These
processes have a local/regional origin and destination. Existing regulations, or the lack
thereof, expedite or slow cross-border flows; therefore, actors will engage in devising
mechanisms to change or create rules that would generate benefits or public goods
4 Cross-Border Planning at the U.S.-Mexico Border: An Institutional Approach

(Olson 1971) for both communities at the border. This process of devising new rules or
keeping existing institutional arrangements imposes transaction costs on the engaged
parties. These transaction costs can take several different forms—costs of acquiring
information (local knowledge, general knowledge, or scientific knowledge), lobbying
officials, coordinating collective action (the greater the number of actors or the more
fragmented the coalition or policy network, the greater the transaction costs), negotia-
tions, etc.(Ostrom 1990; North 1990; Challen 2000; Benz 2002).
The magnitude and velocity of the flows will have an impact on the human and
natural environments that can be mitigated by the built environment. For instance,
increasing the barriers, as the U.S. has done in response to terrorism, will likely have an
impact on air quality, cross-border trade, industrial productivity, investment in the re-
gion, etc. Lowering the barriers, as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)
did, had an impact on the magnitude of the flows (goods, services, and investment) and
these will have an impact on the demand for labor as well as on natural resources
(water), the human environment (crime, social roles and family, poverty, etc.) and the
built environment (housing, roads, sewer, etc).
The degree of formalization of institutions is another important issue. The menu of
institutional choices can be thought of as a continuum where the opposite sides are
formal institutions and completely informal institutions. A general rule in politics is
that the likelihood of an initiative becoming law (formal) is inversely related to hierar-
chical changes of the law. In other words, if a bill (an alternative institutional arrange-
ment) requires a constitutional amendment (the highest in the hierarchy), the less likely
it is to be adopted. The implications of this are discussed next.
A complete formalization of cross-border planning (i.e. trans-local governance
with eminent domain and police powers) would require not only substantive constitu-
tional changes at the national and state levels but also major paradigm shifts in the
world view of nation-states—not even the European Union (EU) has come close to this
institutional arrangement (Faludi 2002). It is also naïve to think that a completely in-
formal practice of cross-border planning would provide an answer to uncertainty or
what Axelrod (1984, 1997) calls the “shadow of the future.” Thus, the best approach is
to think of cross-border planning as an incremental institution-building process
(Lindblom 1996) where communities are engaged in social learning where knowledge
and action (Friedmann 1987) reinforce each other in an iterative process.

Cross-Border Planning and Governance

Ostrom (1990, 50-53) argues that institutions operate under three types of rules—
operational, collective, and constitutional. Operational rules are working rules that do
not necessarily require “external enforcement,” such as a judicial order, whereas con-
stitutional rules are formal law with prescribed sanctions and enforcement mechanisms;
collective rules are a mix. These choices represent a nested hierarchy.
Martinez (1992) states that borders go through four stages: hostility and alienation
followed by peaceful coexistence, then some degree of cooperation emerges, and fi-
nally, integration. Lara (2000) offers a typology to understand cooperation and man-
agement. According to Lara (2000, 166-167), transborder cooperation adopts distinct
modalities—convergence, collaboration, and co-management. Convergence is the lowest
degree of intensity and the actions are spontaneous and part of the day-to-day inter-
play. Collaboration occurs within the limits of flexible arrangements or bodies such as
Volume 22 • No. 1 • Spring 2007 Journal of Borderlands Studies 5

committees or task forces. Co-management implies pooling of institutional, human,

and financial resources. Integration would imply the formation of transnational gover-
nance and perhaps a supranational constitution, as the EU attempted to do.
Figure 1 shows the levels of cooperation put forward by Martinez (1992) and Lara
(2000) on the horizontal axis. The types of rules that evolved are presented in the
vertical axis and are taken from Ostrom’s (1990) conceptualization of rules explained
previously. Thus, it can be hypothesized that there exists a correlation between the
level of cooperation and the type of rules that are required for institutions to operate
effectively (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. Cross-Border Planning and Governance

Rule of Choice

Constitutional Transnational Governance

Binational Governance

Regional/Cross-Border Governance

Collective National Governments

Markets

Operational Private/Civil Society

Convergence Collaboration Co-Management Integration

Types of Cooperation

I concur with the different authors (Benz 2000; Brunet-Jailly 2004) who argue that
cross-border governance and planning involve a coordination effort of several layers of
government in order to achieve accountability and legitimacy. Policy networks and
coalitions working at the operational level by monitoring and enforcing rules should be
added to the government layers. These layers are presented in Figure 1 as a series of
overlapping blocks operating simultaneously, representing how cross-border planning
governance evolves and is built over time.
The three types of institutions—private/civil, market, and governmental—are
present at all levels of cooperation and they are the pillars of cross-border planning.
Private actions can be individual or group action such as chambers of commerce coop-
erating to promote the city to attract business and tourism or environmental policy
networks organizing conferences to exchange information, generate local knowledge,
and promote an agenda. Markets can also be used to address common problems such
as private entrepreneurs providing transportation services across the border or bringing
market solutions to manage natural resources such as water. Finally, governments
complement the institutional blocks.

Cross-Border Planning and the Institution-Building Process

The U.S.-Mexican cross-border planning experience is described in Figure 2. This

figure shows how all multiple layers of government are present simultaneously provid-
6 Cross-Border Planning at the U.S.-Mexico Border: An Institutional Approach

ing the operational framework for cross-border planning. At the highest level, multilat-
eral treaties such as the Stockholm, Rio, etc. protocols provide references regarding
general objectives agreed upon by the international community including Mexico and
the U.S.
The next is the binational level, where the accords are specific to the U.S.-Mexico
context. The La Paz agreement, signed by then presidents Ronald Reagan, of the United
States, and Miguel de la Madrid, of Mexico, in 1983, is the most comprehensive agree-
ment1 that the two countries have negotiated to address environmental issues at the
border. The treaty had established the bases for environmental cooperation. Several
annexes2 have been added to the original treaty. Each annex deals with specific issues
such as sanitation and water pollution (Annex I), industrial hazards (Annexes II & III),
and air pollution (Annexes IV & V). Prior to the La Paz Agreement, earlier treaties
existed to deal with boundary and water issues only. The 1944 treaty is an example; the
treaty established the parameters for water allocations from the Rio Grande and the
Colorado Rivers.3 To apply the treaty, the International Boundary Commission
incremented its scope of action and became the International Boundary and Water
Commission (IBWC) of the United States and Mexico.
The La Paz Agreement has been put into action with border-wide plans. Border
20124 is the most current plan that provides specific objectives and actions derived
from the La Paz Agreement. Border 2012 focuses on five specific objectives: water
pollution, air pollution, land pollution, health, and hazards exposure (terrorism being
considered a form of anthropogenic hazard). The plan assigns to the respective envi-
ronmental agencies in each country, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the
U.S. and the Environment and Natural Resources Secretary known also as SEMARNAT
in Mexico, the role of national policy coordinators. Three types of working groups
exist: a regional work group where Border States are engaged; a border-wide group
focusing on health, emergency response, enforcement, and compliance; and finally,
policy forums focusing on specific issues such as water, air, and hazardous and solid
waste. Finally, task forces are created to address “specific regionally- and community-
identified concerns by implementing site-specific projects.”5
Border 2012 also has an indirect impact on the work of existing binational agen-
cies with jurisdiction at the border—the U.S. and Mexican Sections of the IBWC in
regards to water issues, the Border Environment Cooperation Commission (BECC),
and the North American Development Bank (NADB). The goal of BECC is “to pre-
serve, protect and enhance human health and the environment of the U.S.-Mexico bor-
der region, by strengthening cooperation among interested parties and supporting sus-
tainable projects through a transparent binational process in close coordination with
the North American Development Bank, federal, state and local agencies, the private
sector, and civil society.”6 Once the project has been certified in terms of its merits, it
qualifies for a loan from NADB. These last two institutions were created by means of a
side agreement of NAFTA in 1993 in response to the criticism and pressure mounted
by policy networks of environmentalist and labor unions who opposed the free trade
treaty.
The U.S.-Mexico Border Health Commission (USMBHC), created in 2000, has
been the most recent institutional addition to cross-border planning; the mission of the
commission is “to provide international leadership to optimize health and quality of
life along the U.S.-Mexico border;” the commission identifies HIV/AIDS, tuberculo-
sis, and substance abuse as the most important cross-border issues in health.7
Volume 22 • No. 1 • Spring 2007 Journal of Borderlands Studies 7

The Border Governors Conference, established in 1980, offers the opportunity to

the governors of the ten Border States (four in the USA and six in Mexico) to exchange
ideas. The agenda of the conference focuses on ways to improve cooperation in eleven
areas: agriculture, border crossings, economic development, education, energy, envi-
ronment, wildlife, water, health, security, and tourism.8 There exist other institutions
such as the Sonora-Arizona Commission,9 which are also concerned with border issues
such as quality of life and border crossings.
Local efforts by policy networks are the last but not least important actors. They
are present as another layer or building block of cross-border planning institutions.
Each binational conurbation located along the border has its own policy networks. The
San Diego Dialogue in the Tijuana-San Diego conurbation and the Water and Air Task
Force in the Paso del Norte (PdN) region, covering Ciudad Juarez, Chihuhua-El Paso,
Texas-Las Cruces, New Mexico, are examples of local efforts (governmental and non-
governmental). These examples stand above the rest because of the level of formal
institutionalization they have achieved. The mission of San Diego Dialogue is to ad-
vance solutions to the cross-border region’s long-term challenges related to the economy,
environment, and equity through cross-border development, smart growth, and school
reform. The PdN Air Task Force has already achieved some success by creating sta-
tions across the region to monitor air quality. Also, academic institutions play an im-
portant role in generating information to advise policy makers regarding border issues.
Since 1990, the Southwest Consortium for Environmental Research and Policy (SCERP),
which is a consortium of ten universities (five in Mexico and five in the U.S.), has led
an important effort to generate scientific knowledge about the border through the mono-
graph series The U.S.-Mexican Border Environment and different forums.10
Figure 2 shows the different bureaucracies in the U.S. and Mexico that converge at
the border. Cross-border planning involves a great deal of vertical and horizontal coor-
dination. Vertical coordination, a form of intergovernmental coordination, is more com-
plex in the U.S. compared with Mexico; this complexity is the result of the decentral-
ized form of government in the U.S. compared to Mexico.
In the U.S., other layers of government, known as special purpose governments,
exist in addition to the typical three levels of government (federal, state, and local).
These other layers include water boards, metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs),
and councils of government (COGs), which are of particular importance for cross-
border planning. These institutions are not contemplated in the U.S. Constitution; they
are just given specific powers. Mexicans have been slower, compared to the U.S., in
developing regional or special purpose institutions. State and municipal water boards,
the national water commission, also known as CNA, and the Mexican Section of IBWC
are the ones in charge of water issues at the border.
The Mexican Congress, in 1992, passed the Treaties and Accords Law,11 which
authorizes agencies to establish accords with other peer agencies doing comparable
work and restricted to issues that are of their judicial domain; for instance, water agen-
cies doing accords about water issues. Mexican municipalities are just beginning to
develop planning institutions. There have already been some efforts by municipal plan-
ning institutions to reach across the border in matters of urban planning—for instance,
the Municipal Research and Planning Institute or IMIP in Ciudad Juarez and the El
Paso City Planning Department in the PdN region and the San Diego Association of
Governments (SANDAG) and the municipal planning institute (IMPLAN) in Tijuana.
The two Laredos deserve special mention in this regard because the cities of Nuevo
8 Cross-Border Planning at the U.S.-Mexico Border: An Institutional Approach

Laredo, Tamaulipas and Laredo, Texas have developed a binational urban plan (Herzog
2000a).

Figure 2. U.S.-Mexican Cross-Border Planning Experience

Multilateral Treaties

La Paz Agreement (1983)

Border 2012
Goal 1: Reduce Water Contamination
National Goal 2: Reduce Air Pollution National
Planning Planning
Goal 3: Reduce Land Contamination
Framework Framework
USA Goal 4: Improve Environmental Health Mexico
Goal 5: Reduce Exposure to Chemicals
(Accident or Terrorism)

National Agencies Binational Agencies National Agencies

SEMARNAT
EPA
CAPUFE
Dept. of State U.S. IBWC (1889) MX IBWC (1889) SRE
Homeland Security Customs
BLM BECC & NADBank (1993) C.N.A.

Special The U.S.-Mexico Border Health Commission

Purpose (2004)
Governments
Water
Districts

State Agencies Border Governors Conference

State Agencies
DOT
JMAS
CEQ

Local Efforts
Local & Regional
Policy Networks Local & Regional
Agencies
San Diego Dialogue Agencies
City Planning
COBRO City Planning
MPOS
PdN Water Task Force MPOS
Water Districts
PdN Air Task Force

Horizontal coordination (local-local, state-state) is being facilitated by existing

cross-border institutions, although there is also a great amount of direct coordination
and communication among policy networks that does not require the presence of IBWC
or BECC to mention a few. There is a substantial amount of coordination and commu-
nication among local governments and policy networks at the border. Policy networks
play an important function in cross-border planning by facilitating collective action;
Volume 22 • No. 1 • Spring 2007 Journal of Borderlands Studies 9

environmental networks have been very active across borders and have had some im-
pact on existing institutions such as IBWC, which now are more open to public partici-
pation and more receptive of public input, and BECC which has made public participa-
tion a priority. Even some efforts to formalize and institutionalize public input have
been made through the formation of the Good Neighbor Environmental Board (GNEB)
on the U.S. side; the GNEB is an “independent federal advisory committee. Its mission
is to advise the President and Congress of the United States on good neighbor practices
along the U.S. border with Mexico. Its recommendations are focused on environmen-
tal infrastructure needs within the U.S. states contiguous to Mexico.”12
A general evaluation of this framework suggests that most cross-border planning
has been defined as an issue of intergovernmental coordination; however, the frame-
work should take an “administrative devolution” approach (Rodríguez 1997). Admin-
istrative devolution is when local governments are given full autonomy to engage in
cross-border planning without an intermediary layer of government (Peña 2002). In
short, “high politics” delegates the power to local governments to deal with “low-poli-
tics” issues; intergovernmental coordination is a necessary but not sufficient condition
to successful cross-border planning. Local actors who hold local knowledge need to
play a stronger role and be able to steer and lead policy.

Cross-Border Planning Agenda

As stated in the introduction, this section brings national politics and structures as
contextual variables to analyze the effect they have on the cross-border planning agenda.
Agenda setting refers to how issues become part of the public policy arena. The public’s
demand for policy intervention is limitless but elected officials in charge of supplying
policy change are only willing to address a limited number of issues. So the key ques-
tion is how public demands make their way up to become public policy.
Different models exist to understand agenda setting and the role of policy net-
works (Adolino 2001). Outside initiation is where interest groups or policy networks
make an issue visible and part of a national debate (e.g. border security issues raised by
the Minuteman project,13 etc.). Inside initiation is where interest groups lobby the gov-
ernment for change on specific issues without the issue necessarily being visible (e.g.
teamsters in the U.S. lobbying to stop Mexican trucks from entering the U.S. market14).
Mobilization is when government becomes the interested party in raising the issue (e.g.
national security). Consolidation is when the government brings an issue to the sys-
temic agenda that is already visible (e.g. NAFTA, illegal immigration, etc.). As can be
seen from these examples, different models of agenda setting converge at the border.
Table 1 shows a list of border issues that are part of the current policy debate.
These issues were identified directly from the mission statements and objectives of the
different institutions that facilitate cross-border planning. A cross tabulation was un-
dertaken to see the relationship between the issues and the institutions to determine the
importance of the issue to the agenda.
Transportation and border crossings are at the top of the agenda followed by ur-
banization issues and infrastructure (e.g. insufficient sewage treatment plants, unpaved
roads, water infrastructure, etc.). Next are issues related to environmental externalities,
such as air pollution, contamination of underground and surface water, and over ex-
ploitation of water sources. Water is the most visible agenda issue at the border due to
the dry and desert climate that exists in the U.S. and Mexico, which makes it a scarce
 Table 1
10
Policy Networks
Policy Issues 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Total
Transportation SCERP BECC USMBHC BGC CPD EPA/SEMARNAT COC MAQUILA 8
Rapid Urbanization and Lack
of Adequate Infrastructure SCERP BECC USMBHC CPD EPA/SEMARNAT MAQUILA 6
Hazardous Waste SCERP BECC USMBHC CPD EPA/SEMARNAT MAQUILA 6
Border Crossings IBWC BGC CPD DHS/INM EPA/SEMARNAT COC MAQUILA 7
Contingency/Emergency Response IBWC CPD DHS/INM EPA/SEMARNAT COC MAQUILA 6
Air pollution SCERP BECC USMBHC CPD EPA/SEMARNAT 5
Contamination of Surface Water and Ground
Water SCERP IBWC USMBHC CPD EPA/SEMARNAT 5
Overuse of Aquifers and Surface Streams SCERP IBWC BGC CPD EPA/SEMARNAT 5
Energy SCERP BECC BGC EPA/SEMARNAT MAQUILA 5
Environment SCERP BECC BGC EPA/SEMARNAT MAQUILA 5
Security BGC DHS/INM EPA/SEMARNAT MAQUILA 5
Destruction of Natural Resources SCERP IBWC CPD EPA/SEMARNAT 4
Economic Development BGC CPD COC MAQUILA 4
Education BGC CPD COC MAQUILA 4
Solid Waste BECC CPD EPA/SEMARNAT 3
Agriculture IBWC BGC EPA/SEMARNAT 3
Border Health USMBHC EPA/SEMARNAT 2
Wildlife BGC EPA/SEMARNAT 2
Tourism BGC CPD 2
Boundary IBWC DHS/INM 2
SCERP: Southwest Center for Environmental Research & Policy EPA/SEMARNAT: Environmental Protection Agency/ Secretaría del Medio
IBWC: International Boundary & Water Commission Ambiente y Recursos Naturales
BECC: Border Environment Cooperation Commission DHS: Deparment of Homeland Security/ Instituto Nacional de Migración
USMBHC: U.S.-Mexico Border Health Commission COC: Chambers of Commerce
BGC: Border Governors Conference MAQUILA: Maquiladora Industry
CPD: City Planning Department /San Diego Dialogue/IMIP/IMPLAN
Cross-Border Planning at the U.S.-Mexico Border: An Institutional Approach
Volume 22 • No. 1 • Spring 2007 Journal of Borderlands Studies 11

commodity. Security issues did not score as high as issues related to urban and envi-
ronmental planning. At the bottom of the agenda are the issues related to economic
development such as tourism. This again shows how the local issues or the issues of
“low politics” are more important at the border than the “high politics issues” that are
more of the concern of the federal government through the Department of Homeland
Security (DHS).
In recent years, due to the events of 9/11, the cross-border planning agenda expe-
rienced a shift from outside-inside initiation models towards a consolidation model.
Prior to 9/11, social actors in the form of policy networks played a key role in bringing
issues to the policy agenda, issues more related to “low politics,” such as environmen-
tal infrastructure to offset the effects of NAFTA on the environment. Policy networks at
the border were initiators of the debate and agenda setting. The creation of new institu-
tions such as BECC–NADB in the 1990s, and the USMBHC (2000s) are proof of this
assertion. IBWC, whose history dates back to the 19th century, was the only border-
wide planning institution that existed prior to NAFTA.
The terrorist attacks of 9/11 marked the turning point in the agenda setting at the
border. The agenda shifted towards “high politics” issues such as national security. The
U.S. federal government is the one setting the cross-border planning agenda. Govern-
ment initiatives, such as U.S.-Visit, which will scrutinize entries and exits to and from
the U.S., are a clear example.15 Many of the programs that affect the border flows and
processes have found stronger support in a large segment of national opinion in the
U.S. “Low politics” issues at the border have taken the back seat in the national agenda.
Under the post 9/11 conditions, “low politics” cross-border planning such as environ-
mental infrastructure has taken the back seat with respect to “high-politics” cross-bor-
der planning such as national security.
Table 2 presents information to back the above claims. Two legislative sessions in
the United States are compared to analyze initiatives regarding the border to get a sense
of the agenda. One set of issues was taken from the 104th Congress (1995-1996) oper-
ating under the post NAFTA context and the other the 109th Congress (2005-2006) still
on session operating under the post 9/11 context. Initiatives related to border security
are overwhelmingly (57%) emphasized in the 109th Congress. Security (32%) is also a
concern of the 104th Congress but transportation and other infrastructure projects played
a far more important role (48%).

Table 2
Policy Priorities at the Border
109th Congress 104th Congress
Border Issue (2005-2006) (1995-1996)
Transportation 0% 28%
Health 14% 4%
Environment 14% 8%
Security 57% 32%
Water 14% 0%
Bureaucracy 0% 8%
Infrastructure 0% 20%
Total 7 25
Source: http://www.senate.gov/
12 Cross-Border Planning at the U.S.-Mexico Border: An Institutional Approach

Challenges to Develop a Cross-Border Planning Agenda

This section discusses how existing asymmetries between the U.S. and Mexico
make more difficult and cumbersome the “muddling through” process. The three main
challenges to develop a planning agenda dealing with cross-border planning are dis-
cussed in this section. These challenges are related to: 1) attitudes and behaviors of
national actors, 2) problem definition, and 3) priorities. This section analyzes how
politics at the national level sing a different tune in regards to basic assumptions. When
national actors do not share or agree to common assumptions, cross-border planning
becomes difficult as there must be some common assumptions in order for cross-bor-
der planning to evolve and mature.

’The Bear and the Porcupine’

Several books have been written to study the attitudes and behaviors of Mexicans
and Americans. Riding (1985) has been an important source for analyzing this issue.
Riding describes the relationship as one of distant neighbors. Riding contrasted Mexi-
cans and Americans and concluded that Mexicans are always looking at the glorious
past of their ancient civilization whereas the Americans are always looking forward to
the future. Riding (1985) describes a difficult relationship because Mexicans cannot
forget the past and the territory they lost to the U.S. following a 19th century war and
subsequent treaties. This made Mexicans extremely jealous of their national sover-
eignty and leads to some misinterpretations of U.S. actions. Americans also have some
misconceptions about their neighbor and perceive Mexicans as corrupt and untrust-
worthy, therefore difficult to deal with. So Mexicans and Americans instead turn their
backs to each other and look somewhere else, dealing with each other only when they
have to.
In the early 1980s when Mexico began opening its economy to foreign investment
and trade as a strategy to restart growth, Americans were happy to take advantage of
this opportunity and the two countries seemed to finally find a common interest in
trade issues. Authors such as Weintraub (1990) described the new relationship as a
“marriage of convenience” whereas Smith (2000) described it as an “inevitable part-
nership.” Economic reality and the opportunities that trade had created moved the once
“distant neighbors” into an “inevitable partnership” and finally NAFTA formalized
that “marriage of convenience.”
The election of Vicente Fox of the National Action Party (PAN) to the presidency
in 2000 marked the end of 71 years of rule by the Institutionalized Revolution Party
(PRI), which had held the presidency since 1929. Mexico finally had made the select
list of democratic countries, and Americans were ready to embrace it and make deals
with their neighbor. The attitude of U.S. President George W. Bush, elected that same
year, hinted at a new era. Bush’s first foreign trip was to Mexico and he declared that no
other relationship was as important to the United States as the one with Mexico. It
looked like finally the once distant neighbors had settled their differences. Then 9/11
came and déjà vu the “marriage of convenience” turned into a very public divorce after
Mexico, as a temporary member of the UN Security Council, did not support the ef-
forts by the United States to pass a resolution that would legitimize the U.S. war effort
in Iraq.
Volume 22 • No. 1 • Spring 2007 Journal of Borderlands Studies 13

Former U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Jeffrey Davidow (2004) uses a parable that
captures perfectly the attitudes and behaviors of the national actors that makes coop-
eration at all levels more difficult. The ambassador describes the U.S. attitude as that of
a bear, an animal so powerful that it is able to step over anything consciously or uncon-
sciously. Mexico’s attitude is that of a porcupine, an oversensitive animal with its quills
always ready to react to the littlest provocation. The parable of the bear and the porcu-
pine is perhaps the best way to describe the difficult relations between the two coun-
tries.
There is nothing that infuriates Mexicans more than the perception that the U.S. is
infringing on Mexican sovereignty—no criticism from the U.S. is accepted at all even
if it is obviously factually accurate as the one made by current ambassador Tony Garza
regarding safety issues at the Mexican border where drug- related killings and assassi-
nations are common. Davidow (2004, xiii) is correct when he states that the greatest
impediment to the cooperation between the two countries is “ignorance” as a result of
the attitudes described previously. This attitude “…leads to errors in judgment on both
sides and creates an environment in which important opportunities to build a better
future are lost.” In summary, the greatest obstacle to cooperation is ignorance by both
countries—U.S. ignorance that its domestic policy may inflict some “collateral dam-
age” with specific spatial, human, and environmental dimensions right at the border;
and Mexican ignorance in the perception that cooperation means an attack on its sov-
ereignty so that those seeking alliances are discredited as sell outs.

Problem Definition

Problem definition is another challenge for cross-border planning at the U.S.-Mexico

border. Planning commonly is thought of as a purposeful action to achieve certain
ends. Problem definition is at the heart of any planning endeavor, particularly rational
planning. At the highest level of politics, problem definition is the fundamental issue.
At the level of “high politics,” problems at the border acquire the form of “wicked
problems” (Blanco 1994) where neither party agrees on goals nor solutions. Asymme-
tries and structural differences in the level of development only deepen the wickedness
of the problem.
The U.S.-Mexico border is a paradox of development (Alegría 1989) because the
U.S. southern border is one of the country’s poorest regions whereas Mexico’s north-
ern border is prosperous by Mexican standards. Putting both borders side by side,
substantial qualitative and quantitative differences exist. This means that local govern-
ments along the U.S. border lack political clout and economic power at the state and
national level to really affect and transform the policy agenda. Mexican municipalities
at the border, like any other place, struggle to keep up with the demands that a large
influx of immigration places on their public finance (Peña 2005). The export-led model
followed by Mexico after the financial debacle in the early 1980s accelerated the mi-
gration influx to the border.
The following are examples of how the problems are perceived by the national
governments. This perception often does not match that of the local level. When all
levels of government do not share the same views, the planning process faces more
obstacles than otherwise. For instance, local merchants in El Paso would like to see
improvements in the crossings because cross-border shoppers account for almost one-
14 Cross-Border Planning at the U.S.-Mexico Border: An Institutional Approach

third of retail sales (Peña 2003) whereas the federal government would like to have
more control over entry and exit of visitors.
Immigration is viewed differently by national governments. The U.S. defines and
perceives illegal immigration as a law enforcement issue and the immigrants as law
breakers. The Mexican government views immigration as a labor market issue where
the labor demand in the U.S. is the driving force complemented by Mexico’s inability
to generate enough jobs. At the local level, the blood of the economic system flows.
Transboundary commuters perform an important economic function (labor, custom-
ers, etc.) and the flows move in both directions. On average about 4.1% of the labor
force in Ciudad Juarez are commuters who work in El Paso, Texas and, to a lesser
degree, in Las Cruces, New Mexico located about 50 miles west from El Paso (INEGI-
BIE 2000). In absolute terms, the economically active population in 2000 is about a
half million, which would give an approximate flow of 20,000 commuters from Mexico
into the U.S. According to the president of the Maquiladora Association known as
AMAC, between 10,000 to 12,000 people from the El Paso region work in the
maquiladora sector in Ciudad Juárez.16 This information gives a rough estimate of about
30,000 commuters in the El Paso-Ciudad Juarez region. In addition, the Texas Depart-
ment of Transportation (TXDOT) reported that the dedicated commuter lane (DCL)17
in El Paso in the year 2005 had approximately 1.3 million crossings or about 3,400
crossings per day.
Drugs are also viewed by the U.S. in the same way as immigration—a law en-
forcement and corruption problem instead of a demand and supply issue. In recent
years, both countries have converged in looking at the problem as a “national security”
threat; Mexico has become not only a producer but a consumer as well. The Mexican
government has seen how the drug cartels threaten the State institutions and how do-
mestic consumption has increased at an alarming rate. The National Survey on Addic-
tions in Mexico reported that in 2002 about 1.3 million people (about 2.2% of the age
cohort) between the ages of 12-65 acknowledged using drugs for the first time, mari-
juana and cocaine being the most common.18 Border residents see drugs as a safety
issue that affects quality of life because most of the drug cartels are located at the
border and drug-related assassinations have become a routine occurrence in the Mexi-
can border cities of Tijuana, Ciudad Juarez, and Nuevo Laredo.
Trade after 9/11 has been redefined by the U.S. as a possible venue from which
undesirable threats (terrorists) may enter or weapons of mass destruction (WMD) can
be smuggled. Trade, however, is the blood that keeps local economies alive. Cities such
as Laredo, Texas depend substantially on retail trade and warehousing activities; retail
sales account for half of the gross taxable sales in the case of Laredo compared with
only one- third in the case of El Paso.19 From 2003 to 2005, approximately 6.5 million
trucks crossed the border in the state of Texas, and about half of the flow went through
Laredo (2.9 million).20 Laredo has a privileged position being close to the most dy-
namic economy in Mexico—the city of Monterrey. The maquiladora industry that op-
erates under the management criterion of “just in time” is affected substantially by any
slow down in border crossing time due to homeland security concerns because inputs
will not be there on time when needed. National security policies at the national level
affect the locational advantages of the border cities such as Ciudad Juarez-El Paso and
Tijuana-San Diego where a large number of maquiladora jobs are concentrated.
Volume 22 • No. 1 • Spring 2007 Journal of Borderlands Studies 15

Priorities

The cross-border planning agenda section gave some hints about how difficult it is
to agree on priorities. This disagreement is mainly at the national level and somehow
trickles down to the local level. Table 2 showed how the priorities for the U.S. federal
government have shifted towards security issues. Analyzing the initiatives in the Mexi-
can congress shows that trade is the main priority. Tracking bills related to border
issues since 1997, five bills were found and four dealt with trade issues such as fiscal
reform, changes to help border municipalities make local businesses such as gasoline
stations more competitive,21 and import restrictions on certain products that are not part
of the NAFTA agreement.
What the above paragraph shows is that the U.S. sees security as a priority at the
border while Mexico sees economic development as the priority. Local governments’
priorities somehow get lost in this lack of definition regarding priorities. The conserva-
tive side of public opinion in the U.S. has successfully controlled the agenda in recent
years. This conservative side has linked the U.S.-Mexico border with the war against
terrorism and illegal immigration, and the border has become the frontline; Lou Dobbs,
from the news network CNN, and Tom Tancredo, the congressman from Colorado,
have acquired celebrity status for their anti-immigrant rhetoric since 9/11. Conserva-
tives do not want to acknowledge that the best way to stop illegal immigration is not by
building fences22 but by fostering economic development across the border. Mexican
politicians, particularly those with hyper-nationalist views from the leftist leaning party
of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) and the hard wing of the PRI, such as Manuel
Bartlett, need to understand that closer economic ties to the U.S. do not necessarily
mean a surrender of national sovereignty. Development asymmetries such as those
found at the U.S.-Mexico border make problem definition and establishing priorities a
difficult task to overcome that cross-border planning must deal with.

Conclusions
This article has analyzed the institutional process of cross-border planning at the
U.S.-Mexico border. The process has been described as incremental in which new in-
stitutional arrangements are devised to adjust to reality. The decade of the eighties
marked an inflection point in the U.S.-Mexican experience with cross-border plan-
ning.
What factors contributed to make cross-border planning a prominent issue in the
binational agenda? On the one hand, the U.S. transition from an industrial to a post-
industrial economy and, on the other hand, Mexico shifting from an import substitu-
tion to an export-led model. It is at the U.S.-Mexico border where globalization forces
converge in space and where they interact on a daily basis. It was clear in the 1980s that
the existing institutional framework or status quo was not adequate to deal with the
new challenges that globalization posed for both countries. Therefore, it was necessary
to create new institutions to “muddle through” the challenges that the new context
imposed (i.e. trade, environment, health, etc.) on the two partners.
This paper argued that the way the built environment (i.e. urban settlements) is
planned and organized should be the central focus of cross-border planning. New insti-
tutions such as BECC-NADB and the border health commission are good additions to
the institutional framework. However, it is important to keep retooling (adapt and ex-
16 Cross-Border Planning at the U.S.-Mexico Border: An Institutional Approach

pand their mandate) these institutions so they can make a substantial impact on im-
proving the quality of life of border residents. Thus, it is important to continue evaluat-
ing and monitoring existing institutions in order to keep them relevant.
Because the above institutions do not have eminent domain power and, therefore,
cannot affect the urban planning process directly, it is important that these institutions
(BECC, NADB, IBWC, etc.) play a role of broker or facilitator along the border by
bringing together planning agencies in charge of making decisions regarding the way
the urban environment is managed and built. As this paper showed, there exist some
legal tools (i.e. Treaties and Accords Law) that the Mexican Congress has given to
planning agencies to engage in accords with similar agencies to make their work more
effective.
In sum, the way the built environment is managed and developed has a big impact
on the natural environment and other quality of life dimensions at the border. There-
fore, if the planning process of the urban settlements along the border is overlooked,
then efforts to improve the natural environment will be doomed to failure. Finally, this
paper also made clear that the environment and the uncertainty that this poses about the
future is an issue that politicians in Mexico City and Washington have been able to
“muddle through” more successfully and should continue doing so by fine tuning and
supporting existing institutions and continuing the incremental process of institution
building.

Endnotes
1
http://www.epa.gov/cgi-bin
2
http://www.epa.gov/cgi-bin
3
http://www.ibwc.state.gov/Files/1944Treaty.pdf
4
Border 2012 replaced Border XXI.
5
http://www.epa.gov/usmexicoborder/pdf/2012_english.pdf
6
http://www.cocef.org/ingles.php
7
http://www.borderhealth.org/about_us.php
8
http://www.edd.state.nm.us/BordGov/history.html
9
http://www.azmc.org/index.asp?from=borderissues
10
http://www.scerp.org/
11
http://www.scjn.gob.mx/leyes. In Spanish is known as Ley Sobre la Celebración de Tratados.
12
http://www.epa.gov/ocem/gneb/
13
The Minuteman project took place in April 2005 at the Agua Prieta, Sonora-Douglas, Arizona
border. A group of volunteers became vigilantes on the U.S. side of the border arguing that the
federal government had failed in providing border security to its citizens, prompting the people
themselves to take the law into their own hands.
14
Under NAFTA, Mexican trucks should be allowed to enter the U.S. beyond the border but the
Teamsters, an American truckers’ union, has lobbied the U.S. Congress to block Mexican trucks
because of safety concerns. The Clinton administration stopped Mexican trucks and then, under
President George W. Bush, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Mexican truckers.
15
http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/interapp/content_multi_image/content_multi_image_0006.xml
16
El Paso Times. Sep. 19,2001. P. 1A
17
The Dedicated Commuter Lane is the equivalent of the SENTRI in the Tijuana-San Diego
region. It is used by people who commute on a daily basis for work and school mainly. Users
Volume 22 • No. 1 • Spring 2007 Journal of Borderlands Studies 17

need to go through a security background check and pay fees in the U.S. and Mexico of about
$400 per year.
18
Encuesta Nacional de Adicciones 2002: http://www.consulta.com.mx/interiores/99_pdfs/
15_otros_pdf/ENA.pdf
19
http://ecpa.cpa.state.tx.us/allocation/HistSales.jsp;jsessionid=0000lbO-Nh94Kn_dEQTtV00k-
iz:-1
20
http://texascenter.tamiu.edu/texcen_services/truck_crossings.asp?framepg=datatruck
21
A major change was to lower gasoline prices in the border municipalities to make them com-
parable to those in the U.S. so that Mexicans would stop going across the border to purchase
gasoline. In Mexico, there is no market competition in gasoline and oil; the industry is controlled
by a state enterprise, PEMEX, and Congress establishes prices.
22
Bill H.RES.71 was signed by President Bush on May 11, 2005 where money is allocated for
the construction of the San Diego border fence In addition to other measures to fight terrorism.

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