Border 'mega-region' waiting to be tapped

The message at the Urban Land Institute’s October breakfast meeting was clear: Investing in the resources of the largely untapped Cali-Baja Mega-Region is the key to climbing out of this economic recession and establishing San Diego and Tijuana as a premier global city. 

Steve Williams, founding partner of SENTRE Partners and moderator of the discussion Tuesday, stressed the economic urgency of developing a collaborative partnership between San Diego, Imperial County and Tijuana, the three regions comprising the mega-region. He cited a study by the San Diego Association of Governments that found 100,000 people wait upward of two hours to cross the border at San Ysidro each morning, at a cost of $5 billion to the region every year.

“That’s a $1,000 pay raise per person -- man, woman and child -- if we could create a smart border tomorrow, from a dumb border today,” Williams said. “That border is our cash register, and we’re making everybody wait two hours without a SENTRI pass. We have the world’s largest, dumbest border.”
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