Abstract

OLIVERAS GONZALEZ, Xavier. Initiatives of cross-border regional planning in Matamoros-Brownsville (Mexico-United States). Invest. Geog [online]. 2016, n.89, pp.154-167. ISSN 2448-7279.  https://doi.org/10.14350/rig.44396.

Cross-border regional planning is a recent phenomenon, which its first initiatives date back to 1960s. Currently some experiences have been conducted, most of them in Europe. The weak development of this phenomenon lies on the obstacles and limitations that it has to deal with. Those obstacles derive from the asymmetries between the political and administrative systems, urban and spatial policies, land planning and land uses, etc. on each side of an international border. In a great extent, cross-border planning has been theoretically approached from an institutional construction perspective. However, in this research it has been adopted the symbolic regional construction perspective that allows to analyze cross-border regional planning through spatial imaginaries. In this sense, crossborder planning is understood as a result of the interaction between regional actors and the social constructed values and meanings (geographical, cultural, social, economic, historical, etc.) given to border and cross-border regions. This investigation pursues, in first place, to determine the spatial imaginaries on which cross-border planning is constructed and, at the same time, the spatial imaginaries that cross-border planning reproduces; in second place, to determine in which way cross-border planning contributes to deactivate the border (deborder) or, on the contrary, to reproduce and reinforce the spatial differentiation process (the process by which two contiguous national or bordered spaces build spatial discontinuities as a way to distinguish of each other). To achieve these objectives, it has been conducted a content analysis based on the documentation of the spatial and urban planning and of the cross-border initiatives from a case study area; a direct observation of an ongoing cross-border initiative; and interviews to key informants (planning agencies and other organizations related to cross-border initiatives).

In the Mexico-United States border region some initiatives of this kind have been carried on, particularly between cross-border conurbations (Tijuana-San Diego, Ciudad Juárez-El Paso, etc.). One cross-border conurbation has been selected: Matamoros, Tamaulipas and Brownsville, Texas. There six initiatives have been carried on since late 1960s: Urban development bi-national planning program (1968), Binational 2020 Land Use and Transportation Plan (1997-99), Binational Transportation Focus Group (2002), Laguna Madre Binational Initiative (1998-2000), Bi-National Economic Development Zone (BI-NED Zone ) (2011-...), and Lower Rio Grande Valley-Tamaulipas Border Master Plan (2013). All of them present some particularities based on their objectives and function, participant local and regional actors, the planning phase, and their results. Despite differences, they show a common feature: the existence of a shared set of spatial topics of interest, like transportation and infrastructures, land uses in adjacent border spaces, and regional development. These six initiatives are not isolated from the ongoing local, national and binational spatial debates, but they have been carried on in parallel with some other binational processes (such as NAFTA and NAAEC ), planning and construction of new international bridges, elaboration of urban plans in one or both cities, and confluence with conjectural economic development opportunities. In all of these initiatives the border is deactivated and, simultaneously, the spatial differentiation is reproduced. That can be observed in the objects and spatial dynamics that are subject to planning, the spatial distribution of land uses across the boundary, and the objectives and participant actors of cross-border planning processes. Finally, four main spatial imaginaries have been identified: the "other side" and the cross-border dimension; economic development and crossborder transportation infrastructures; the divergent spatial distribution of land uses according to the boundary; and the United States as a main reference.

Keywords : Cross-border regional; cross-border regional planning; Mexico-United States; spatial imaginary.

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