San Diego and Tijuana
Two sister cities separated by a heavily protected international border between the United States
and Mexico. Yes, that’s a giant fence that separates the 24 km (15 miles) long border.
It’s illegal to cross over that fence. If you want to go back and forth between the
two cities, which hundreds of thousands of people do every day, you must go through one
of three checkpoints. The largest of these checkpoints, the San Ysidro Port of Entry,
is the busiest land border crossing in the Western Hemisphere and second busiest international
land border crossing in the world.
San Diego is often known as “America’s Finest City,” and while Los Angeles often
gets all the attention in Southern California, San Diego residents have tremendous pride
in their home. Tijuana, meanwhile, is sometimes nicknamed “The Gateway to Mexico” but
San Diego residents often just call it “TJ,” and it’s a major destination hub that tourists
flock to.
The San Diego-Tijuana metropolitan area is the largest metropolitan area along that U.S.-Mexican
border. While both San Diego and Tijuana are known for their stark differences, they probably
have more in common than you think. And who knows, maybe if that giant fence wasn’t
there, they WOULD have more in common.
Let’s first focus on those differences, though. Um, yeah San Diego is in the United
States. Tijuana is in Mexico. But you already knew that. San Diego has more people. Its
metro area has about 1.1 million more people. (SD- 3.3 million, T- 2.2 million) City proper,
San Diego is the second-largest city in California and the eighth-largest city in the United
States. Tijuana is the largest city in the Mexican state of Baja California and sixth
largest metro in all of Mexico.
Tijuana is more densely populated.
The cost of living is A LOT higher in San Diego. In fact, according to some estimates,
it’s around FOUR TIMES AS HIGH. This explains why so many San Diego residents cross the
border into Tijuana for some great deals. In fact, there’s a rising trend of Americans
moving to Tijuana for that much lower cost of living. Oh don’t get me wrong, lots of
Tijuana residents also shop in San Diego. Rent prices are indeed skyrocketing in San
Diego. Hey, but at least San Diego has a higher minimum wage amirite?
Lots of 18, 19, and 20-year olds from San Diego party down in Tijuana. Why? Well because
Mexico’s drinking age is 18, while it’s 21 in the United States.
San Diego has a lot less poverty. Related to this, Tijuana has much more crime...especially
violent crime. While San Diego has a reputation as being one of the safest big cities in the
United States, many automatically associate Tijuana with drug cartels and violent crime.
That is misleading, though. Much of Tijuana is surprisingly safe, but there are certain
parts of town where it’s often not a good idea to just hang out. There is a major problem
in Tijuana with corruption in its police force. Often, they just let drug gangs do their thing.
And yeah, I have to bring up that in recent years, Tijuana has consistently had the highest
per capita murder rate in the world.
And since I’m already bringing up information that makes Tijuana look bad, let’s now look
at pollution. Uh, yeah...Tijuana has much more air and water pollution. In fact, the
Tijuana River, which flows through both cities and empties into the Pacific Ocean, regularly
carries lots of raw sewage from Tijuana. So San Diego is constantly dealing with Tijuana’s
poop. Yeah I said it. Poop.
Tijuana has more traffic. Look, I’m sorry Tijuana residents. I’m just looking up facts
here.
San Diego has a deep water port with San Diego Bay, whereas Tijuana does not, and relies
not only on San Diego’s port, but also relies on the nearby Port of Ensenada.
Like several other Mexican cities, Tijuana has a giant Mexican flag visible from all
over the city. It also has a giant arch you can see almost anywhere in the city.
San Diego takes up more land area (SD- 964.5 km², T- 637 km²) Looking at maps of San
Diego and Tijuana, San Diego goes more north to south, whereas Tijuana is more east to
west, with not much of it even bordering the Pacific Ocean. This is evidence that Tijuana
is much more dependent on San Diego than San Diego is on Tijuana.
Tijuana residents are generally more religious. The biggest religion in both is Christianity,
but of that group, more San Diego Christians identify as Protestant and more Tijuana Christians
identify as Roman Catholic.
San Diego has been around longer. Discovered by the Germans, in 1904. They named it SAH DIEAHGO which of course in German means a whale's va-
Unfortunately Ron Burgundy is wrong. Do not listen to him for history lessons. But before
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Ok ya dingus, so now it’s history time, for real. Check it. Humans have lived in the
area for thousands of years. At the time of European arrival in 1542, the main tribe in
the area were the Kumeyaay. Portuguese explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, although he may have
been Spanish...he was sailing for Spain anyway….was the first European to check out the area.
60 years later, Sebastian Vizcaino mapped the area and tried to get Spain to colonize
the area. However, it wasn’t until 167 years later that they actually did. In 1769, Gaspar
de Portolá built a fort called Presidio de San Diego. It was the first permanent European
settlement on the Pacific Coast of the present-day United States, (I'll be honest, I don't know if anyone knows what it means anymore. Scholars maintain that the translation was lost hundreds of years ago. Doesn't it mean "Saint Diego?"
No.
No, that's...That's what it means.
Named after Diego de Alcala, a missionary. Soon after, Franciscan priests built a mission
there to try to convert the locals to Roman Catholicism. By 1774, Spanish colonists began
arriving to live. In reaction to these new colonists taking over, the Kumeyaay rebelled
against them the following year, killing priests and burning down the mission. However, the
priests rebuilt the mission, and by 1797 the mission had become the largest in California,
by that time apparently converting as many as 1,400 American Indians.
It wasn’t until 1829 that a dude named Santiago Argüello got a big land grant that later
would be the foundation for the city of Tijuana. At the time, the land was now controlled by
Mexico, who had gained independence from Spain a few years prior. Argüello started a cattle
ranch which he named Rancho Tía Juana, apparently named after a nearby Kumeyaay settlement,
although Tia Juana translates to Aunt Jane in Spanish. Five years later, the San Diego
Mission was shut down and the land sold off. Soon San Diego became a pueblo, but due to
being far away from a water route, it struggled to develop. In fact, it lost residents, going
from around 600 residents in 1830 all the way down to 100 by 1838. In 1842, the Kumeyaay
raided the town in an attempt to kick the Mexican settlers out. While the siege failed,
the Kumeyaay were able to separate Alta California, which was the province San Diego was in, from
the rest of Mexico.
During the Mexican–American War, American troops and Mexican troops went back and forth
fighting for control of San Diego. Ultimately, the Americans were able to hold on to it,
but only after their only big defeat in the war at the Battle of San Pasqual. After the
United States did defeat Mexico in the war and both countries signed the Treaty of Guadalupe
Hidalgo, Mexico lost all of Alta California. Most of the San Diego residents stayed put,
but some crossed south of the new border to remain with Mexico. Because of this, more
and more folks would move into what would become the town of Tijuana, which now gained
a different purpose as a gateway to the rest of the country.
However, it wasn’t until more than 40 years later, on July 11, 1889, that Tijuana finally
officially became a city. By that time, San Diego was a rising port city. A dude named
Alonzo Horton was influential in developing it up so it had nice infrastructure- especially
access to clean water. After a transcontinental railroad route came to San Diego in 1885,
the population began to boom, reaching more than 16,000 by 1890. Meanwhile, Tijuana quickly
positioned itself as a tourism hub. Tourism growth was temporarily stunted when revolutionaries
loyal to Ricardo Flores Magón took over it for a month, but after that the Panama-California
Exposition brought many visitors to San Diego, Tijuana residents soon made everything legal
there that wasn’t legal in the United States. You know, stuff like gambling on horse races
and drinking.
Speaking of which, during Prohibition, when it was illegal to make, sell, or transport
alcohol in the United States, San Diego residents, and other Americans for that matter, flocked
to Tijuana every day. Tijuana also became a place where plenty of alcohol was smuggled
across the border into San Diego. By the 1920s, Tijuana had developed a reputation as a place
where Americans would go to live it up. It was the original sin city before Las Vegas
later became the new Sin City.
By the Great Depression, San Diego’s population had swelled to almost 150,000 and Tijuana
was still basically a suburb of it. San Diego survived the Great Depression better than
most American cities. Since World War One, it had become a strategically important location
for the American military, and also a well suited place for developing weapons. That
really picked up during World War Two of course, and ever since San Diego has remained a military
center in the country.
After World War Two, both San Diego and Tijuana grew rapidly. Tijuana’s tourism industry
dramatically expanded and the economies of both cities started to diversify. By 1980,
San Diego had nearly 900,000 residents. Between 1980 and 1985 alone, Tijuana’s population
doubled to more than 1 million, almost catching up to San Diego. This was due to lots of new
manufacturing jobs outsourced from the United States. In the early 2000s, however, tighter
United States border controls after 9/11 and a sharp rise in drug cartel violence led thousands
of wealthier Tijuana residents to flee and move up to the San Diego metro.
And yet….today, Tijuana is the most visited border city in the world. It’s also the
westernmost city in Mexico. Both San Diego and Tijuana have different economies. Today
major industries in San Diego still include trade and defense and military, but also tourism.
Major industries in Tijuana also still include tourism, but additionally retail and manufacturing.
In fact, Tijuana is one of the leading manufacturing cities in all of North America. It’s well
known that multinational corporations have several maquiladoras in Tijuana, which are
low-cost factories that can take advantage of a cheaper labor force.
San Diego has the only major submarine and shipbuilding yards on the American West Coast.
Major attractions in San Diego include the world-famous San Diego Zoo, Balboa Park, The
Gaslamp Quarter, or Gaslamp District, Seaport Village, and the USS Midway Museum. Major
attractions in Tijuana include Playas de Tijuana, Plaza Rio Tijuana, the Tijuana Cultural Center,
Mercado El Popo, and Friendship Park, which is right at the international border.
Ok, other random differences?
Tijuana has an exceptionally large amount of medical tourists who visit each year.
San Diego has an amazing trolly that can get you from downtown to Tijuana in about 45 minutes
apparently...oh, and for dirt cheap.
Marijuana is legal in San Diego, but not Tijuana. The roles have reversed! However, Mexico seems
to be all about legalizing marijuana any month now.
Tijuana seems to have more going on in its streets- more street performers, for example,
and street vendors.
The southern portion of San Diego, conveniently named South San Diego is an exclave- not having
any land connection to the rest of the city. That’s the portion that borders Tijuana.
Ok, but let’s finish the video with some similarities between the two.
Well, both are near the Pacific Ocean, of course.
Both have one of the most desirable climates in the world. Both have a semi-arid climate
and a Mediterranean climate, with warm, dry summers, and somewhat wet winters. San Diego
does get slightly more precipitation. Both have lots of sunshine and lots of palm trees
and beautiful beaches. I mean come on, residents of both cities are spoiled with their climate.
Due to being near the San Andreas Fault, both do have to worry about earthquakes. Due to
the aforementioned dry climate and...uh...humans, both also have to worry about wildfires.
Both are near small mountain ranges...the main three being the Laguna Mountains, Cuyamaca
Mountains, and Sierra De Juárez. San Diego and Tijuana also are around a bunch of canyons.
Both cities are diverse and cosmopolitan. Both have a fairly large population of residents
who trace their ancestry to various Asian countries.
Walking around in both cities, you’ll hear plenty of people speaking both English and
Spanish. In fact, Spanglish might just be the unofficial language of both cities. At
least a quarter of Tijuana residents can speak English, and almost half of San Diego residents
regularly speak Spanish.
And finally, tacos. Both cities have some of the best tacos in the world. Tacos. Enough
said?
I’ll end this video by looking at Las Americas Premium Outlets, a giant outlet mall that
straddles the border between the two cities, just west of the San Ysidro Port of Entry.
Here, San Diego and Tijuana residents often come together, and, well, you wouldn’t be
able to tell, would you?
So hey it’s been a bit since I released an episode of Compared. A special shout out
to Jabril from the channel Jabrils. He’s from San Diego and looked over the script
for me. But yeah, what did I get wrong? What did I
get right? Which two cities would you like me to compare next for this series? Let me
know down below. Next week, it’s the epic return of Supreme Court Briefs. It’s been
awhile for that series, too. Anyway, thanks for watching. See ya when I see ya.