Roving vigilantes, fear-mongering politicians, hysterical pundits, and the looming shadow of a 700-mile-long fence: the U.S.Mexico border is one of the most complex and dynamic areas on the planet today. With more than one million daily crossings, the border has increasingly has become a hotbed for debate. But too often its complexities are viewed through the myopic lens of illegal immigration, ignoring a multitude of other critical issues that include health, the environment,drug trafficking, free trade, and post-9/11 security. Hyperborder provides the most nuanced portrait yet of this dynamic region. Author Fernando Romeropresents a multidisciplinary perspective informed by interviews with numerous academics, researchers, and organizations. He begins by examining issues faced by other border regions including those dividing North and South Korea and Israel and Palestine. A brief summary of the U.S.Mexico border's recent history provides a much-needed context for a detailed portrait of the many unique issues the two countries face today. Romero uses current economic, political, social, andenvironmental trends to project potential scenariosboth positive and negativefor the border at the midway mark of the twenty-first century. Provocatively designed in the style of other kinetic large-scale studies like Rem Koolhaas's Content and Bruce Mau's Massive Change, Hyperborder is an exhaustively researched report from the front lines of the border debate. Nonpartisan in its politics and tackling issues from both U.S. and Mexican perspectives, this book is essential reading for anyone who wishes to understandand find solutions forthe many intertwined issues that define this complex region of the world, and others like it.
