ABSTRACT
US cities bordering Mexico are unique not only because their geography and history connect them to contrasting social, economic, and institutional systems across the border, but because they exist in a policy and political space of exceptionality. Within a 100-mile zone from the international boundary, US cities and their inhabitants are subject to policies of surveillance, scrutiny, and suspicion, on the one hand, while seemingly divergent policies animate cross-border trade, tourism, outsourcing, and integration, on the other. This chapter explores the implications of bordering for socio-spatial integration and differentiation of US urban places abutting Mexico. In particular, we examine the effect of bordering on the socio-spatial structuration of micropolitan Nogales (Arizona) and the planning and governance of metropolitan San Diego (California). We argue that, even when the structuration of urban space reflects a number of complex and large-scale historical, cultural, and economic factors, it also offers an indication of the local response to the intensification of rebordering/debordering dynamics.
