Ciudad Juárez: A Perfect Storm on the US–Mexico Border

Abstract

Ciudad Juárez, across from El Paso, Texas, suffered an unprecedented downfall into violence and chaos between 2007 and 2012. It came to be known in 2010 as “the most dangerous city in the world.” What can cause a city to spiral downward into bloodshed and turmoil in the way that Ciudad Juárez did? This article makes the argument that the city's descent into violence and chaos is the result of a number of poor decisions made over the course of the 40 years preceding the bloodshed of the years under examination. The border in turn, this article argues, constitutes the most important contextual variable in determining the political, economic, social and cultural decision making of the city's leadership and its people. It was the city's overreliance on the advantages that its border location conferred on it for a long time what ended up generating a series of inbuilt weaknesses in its economic development model, its social and cultural fabric, and its political landscape that would eventually cause the city to collapse when external decision makers, from federal politicians to criminals, made decisions that exposed its inbuilt weaknesses.