Tijuana Today/USA Tomorrow?
Tijuana Strip Turns Ghostly In Wake of Drug Violence
As Tourists Increasingly Shun Mexico’s Border Cities, Many Businesses Can’t Survive………..
…….Daylight gun battles, beheadings and kidnappings have scared away tourists, forced layoffs and turned some areas of once-vibrant Mexican border cities into virtual ghost towns. The drug wars, which have killed more than 6,000 people in the past 2 1/2 years, have accelerated a decline that merchants also blame on the U.S. economic slowdown and delays at the border because of increased enforcement.
In Tijuana, where at least 200 people have been killed in drug violence this year, merchants say tourism is down as much as 90 percent compared with 2005, when an estimated 4 million people visited. Half of the downtown businesses — more than 2,400 — are shuttered. Farther east along the border, empty markets have become the norm in Ciudad Juarez, where fighting between rival cartels has killed 200 people this year. In Nuevo Laredo, five hotels have shut down.
“We’re touching bottom,” said Andrs Mndez, an Avenida Revolucion shop owner. “This is the barometer for what can happen in the rest of our city and the rest of our country.”