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The border experience has great significance for instructing us on how international cooperation and cross-cultural accommodation can be accomplished, and how individuals can draw strength from within themselves to successfully overcome problems that arise from living on the periphery, in an environment that is neither mainstream USA or mainstream Mexico, but a variation of each.

- Oscar Martinez

The US-Mexico border has been inextricably bound by hundreds of years of history, culture, and trade, the communities of the border regions have stronger connections to their neighbors across the border than far away in Washington D.C. and Mexico City. Such linkages have been fundamental in shaping identities and the culture of the borderlands. Since the advent of the processes of economic integration consolidated by NAFTA, the border regions have become important economic players in the post-Fordist era of globalization. The southern border is the site of the consolidation of economic interaction between the US and Mexico. As trade flows increase, the border regions assume a larger importance to the national economies. Regional trading blocs have resulted from the process of "glocalization", and the dynamic potential of the southern border has rapidly become the focus of policy and research. The following chapters illustrate how as a result of NAFTA and increased trade flows, the regions of the US-Mexico border are increasingly interdependent. Due to these processes, the border regions are experiencing growing pains and they are struggling with challenges of achieving sustainable and long-term economic growth. By examining the problems, particularly those posed to the shared environment, in detail, we proceed to advance a coordinated set of policy proposals for making border region development sustainable into the future.

Stretching from the Pacific Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico, the Southern border region is characterized by a great wealth of natural resources and diversity (see Map).

Almost 90% of the border population lives in urban areas. For the most part, these urban areas form twin-city communities composed of an American and Mexican city closely related by proximity, commerce, and shared resources. This section focuses on the twin cities of San Diego and Tijuana on the California-Baja California border and the twin cities of El Paso and Ciudad Juarez, Laredo and Nuevo Laredo, McAllen and Reynosa, and Brownsville and Matamoros on the Texas-Mexico border. These twin-cities demonstrate the high level of cross-border interdependency and the crucial socio-economic and environmental challenges which need to be addressed through policy which incorporates the greater processes at work.

The biggest challenge to development and policy along the Southern border is the asymmetries that exist. Even as the twin-cities become increasingly integrated, disparities remain in living and working conditions, wages, and infrastructure. This is a significant difference from the northern border, and demonstrates the urgency of the issues explored in the following chapters.

In the following chapters, Heidi Hall and Erika Kussmann explore the socio-economic challenges that confront the southern border. Although the economies of these regions have depended on each other long before NAFTA, the agreement has fostered a sharp growth in trade, commerce, and the establishment of international production plants known as maquiladoras. Mexican maquiladoras have been growing along the border shaping the development of the region. Besides job growth in the Mexican cities, maquiladoras promote trade and investment in the US, due to the economic synergy of the US cities with their cross-border counterparts. Maquiladoras are established in Mexico in response to the chief competitive advantage of the region, namely a surplus of cheap labor and low enforcement of environmental regulations. Their economic success is based on the exploitation of Mexican labor, thus allowing them to lower their production costs and remain competitive in a global market. As they continue to expand their activities, issues have arisen regarding the future of labor and the conditions for both Mexican and American workers. These, we argue, must be addressed through measures of upward (rather than downward) harmonization so as to secure the sustainability of the development trajectory.

The growth of trade and commerce, raises fundamental issues concerning infrastructure capacities as growth outpaces the existing infrastructure. There is a serious lack of adequate roads and international bridges, contributing to overwhelming delays at existing points of entry. The border is unable to accommodate the flow of cross-border goods, traffic and people. In addition, the border regions here are experiencing rapid population growth as migrants travel to the north to take advantage of jobs in maquiladoras. Increased integration, as well as the vulnerability of the Mexican economy has caused immigration into the US to grow, particularly into Southern California in the Tijuana-San Diego region.

Bryan Roe and Gerardo Botello's chapters will examine the environmental implications of NAFTA that are predicated by the socio-economy of the border region. On the southern border, the twin-cities provide an important test case for improving our understanding of how reduced trade barriers impact the border region that links a developed and less developed economy. The environmental sections will explore how rapid economic gains along the border are threatening the long-term environmental sustainability of the region. Economic development is outpacing the advancement of infrastructure to cope with the overwhelming growth; for instance, border cities along the boundary, from the San Diego-Tijuana region to the Gulf coast of Mexico, lack sufficient treatment facilities to adequately treat waste before dumping it back into the environment.

The common environmental problems along the border are covered in more region-specific detail in the following chapters. Border cities suffer from escalating water pollution, increasing water shortages, soil contamination, and air pollution. Besides exploring these issues, this section will also draw particular attention to the interdependency of the cities on each side of the border. Pollution from one side of the border impacts both its area and the city across the border. Therefore, when investigating potential solutions to the environmental challenges on the border, governments and non-governmental organizations cannot only address domestic sources of pollution while neglecting pollution from across the border. In short, the environmental problems along the US-Mexico border indicate the need for greater cross-border cooperation when addressing environmental problems.

In addition to examining the pressing socio-economic and environmental issues along the southern border caused by increasing interdependency, Dominik Karelus investigates the lessons that can be learned from the European Union's attempt to address integration in the context of asymmetry. Similar problems exist within the NAFTA and the EU free trade areas, especially regarding the asymmetries between developed and less developed states. Karelus' chapter compares such inequalities and analyzes the institutions and policies that are working towards reducing the asymmetries and bringing the "southern" periphery of the EU towards greater economic parity with the "north".

Karelus' exploration of how the EU has dealt with similar problems as those experienced by the US-Mexican border region reveals specific lessons that, if applied, will further the prospects for sustainable development on the US-Mexico border. The European example shows that policy should focus on the regional and local levels. Shifting the decision-making process to the border regions allows for more input from bi-national communities who, through experience, know and understand their problems better than distant governments in Washington DC and Mexico City.

Lessons from all of these chapters are addressed in Valeria Leonardi's, culminating in the synthesis of policy recommendations for the southern border. The recommended approach to addressing the problems of the southern border region is to shift decision-making to a regional and local level in order to achieve increased trans-border cooperation. Emphasis is also placed on the important role that bi-national institutions should play and their potential ability to solve the border regions' problems.

NAFTA has accelerated cross-border interactions, and has strained the capacity of the border regions to sustain their current development path. Recognition that the twin cities are interdependent, that new socio-economic and environmental challenges are increasing, and that the potential exists for resolving these problems is the critical first step in motivating corrective action. Through increasing trans-regional dialogue and cooperation, the US and Mexico, working towards upward harmonization on the continental scale, must continue to focus on the border region and its twin cities. In this manner, these actors can work coherently to resolve these new threats to sustainability and provide for the long term harmony of the border region. The following chapters are an attempt to show that, while the problems are significant, the means exist to ensure social, economic, and ecological sustainability on the US-Mexico border.