Landscapes of convergence : a proposal for exchange at the San Diego-Tijuana border

Abstract

This thesis addresses the relationship between San Diego, California and Tijuana, Mexico. Although these two cities are part of a single landscape and ecology, they are divided, not only by a physical wall, but very different cultural, social, political and economic realities. This thesis is a proposition about exchange. Economic exchange has always been the driving force for interaction between San Diego and Tijuana. Their relationship has operated at a very fundamental level, rooted in a market economy driven by the laws of supply and demand. My goal is to build on this interaction, to exchange beyond the mutual economic interests and to provide a forum for a broadened, more meaningful exchange. Social, cultural and environmental exchange will heighten understanding and mutual respect, and begin to dissipate the psychological barriers that exist between the two sides, serving to better connect the people of this border region. I believe the foremost place for such interaction is the border region, itself. Currently, it is a painfully disconnected, forbidding and blighted region that harshly articulates the uneasy relationship between the two sides. The border marks a physical line of convergence that could begin to celebrate intellectual and social convergence. My proposal offers an east-west solution to this north-south problem. It establishes a new directionality that runs parallel to the border rather than across it. This new corridor uses the landscape to emphasize that which is shared, while establishing points of reflection and dialogue. The intention is to reinvent the border region as a critical juncture between cultures and nations, making the border not a point or a line, but an engagement.