Crisis On The Rio Grande

Poverty, Unemployment, And Economic Development On The Texas-mexico Border

Dianne C. Betts

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9780429723391
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

With the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) looming large and imminent, this book explores the socio-economic fabric of the U.S.-Mexico border region as a measure of NAFTA's future. It presents the social and economic history of the Lower Rio Grande Valley on the Texas-Mexico border..

1
An Overview of Demographic and Socio-economic Conditions in the Lower Rio Grande Valley

1.1 Introduction

Before exploring the poverty/economic development relationship in the LRGV in a more rigorous fashion, it is important to have an overview of general socio-economic conditions in the region. Any strategies to eradicate poverty here must be based on a fundamental understanding of how poverty (and attendant problems) arose in the region in the first place and how changes in demographic factors have affected the region over time. From a socio-economic perspective, understanding the demographic dynamics of the region may well hold the key to structuring public policy actions so that current problems can be remedied and future ones prevented.

Understanding the infrastructure of the region is also pivotal in attempting to forecast the impact of the maquiladora phenomenon. It is important to know how industrial development in northern Mexico will affect unemployment and the level of poverty on both sides of the border. The same understanding is necessary to estimate how a proposed free trade agreement between Mexico, the United States, and Canada will affect the level of employment and the level of poverty in the region.

This chapter, then, provides a broad overview of the basic demographic changes which have occurred in the last few decades. Such information should allow us to begin to piece together the puzzle and determine why this region has been so destitute for so long.

The geographic area encompassed by this study includes the northern part of the Mexican state of Tamaulipas and the Texas counties of Cameron, Hidalgo, Starr, and Willacy, a region known as the Lower Rio Grande Valley (LRGV -- see Figure 1.1). From earliest times, there have been distinctive similarities and differences in patterns of economic development in this region as Mexican border labor and commodities have found their way into the U.S. economy. On the Mexican side of the river, urban centers that are isolated both economically and geographically have sprung up. Because they are far from the national capital, Mexico City, and are surrounded by wasteland, these urban centers have tended to form social and economic bonds with their sister cities on the other side of the borde...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Tables and Figures
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 An Overview of Demographic and Socio-economic Conditions in the Lower Rio Grande Valley
• 2 The Measurement and Analysis of Poverty
• 3 Colonias and Economic Development
• 4 The Maquiladora Industry and Economic Development
• 5 Border Migration and Economic Development
• 6 NAFTA and the Economy of the Lower Rio Grande Valley
• 7 Problems and Prospects: A Summary
• Selected Bibliography
• About the Book and Authors
• Index