Baja California...

[lamsalfl]

CAn't sleep because I am so excited about going to the Dome tomorrow for the NFC CG, so I was just playing with bingmaps.  If Baja California (all the way to Cabo San Lucas) was American and not impoverished, do you think we'd just have more San Diego-type cities down there?  Or is that peninsula too long and too isolated from mainland Mexico and the US?  When you look at aerials, it looks similar in geography and climate?  I assume it maintains the same Mediterranean climate as SoCal.

[J N Winkler]

I think there would be more resort-type coastal development because Americans would be able to buy coastal properties without having to worry about the provision in the Mexican constitution which bans foreigners from having title to any land within a certain distance of the shoreline.  But large cities--probably not.  Much of Baja California is rocky and unsuitable for agriculture.  Much of Baja California Sur is fog desert as well.  Because it is a pleasant place to visit, it might attract software houses, but it would not have the cluster advantage of established locations like Silicon Valley.

[Chris]

Are there enough water resources to support large cities there anyway? We all know cities like Los Angeles, Phoenix and Las Vegas will get water shortages in the future. Large cities in the desert are not very sustainable, they require a huge amount of resources to function, especially U.S.-style developments which are not exactly known for their energy efficiency (think about all the airconditioning for instance).

[J N Winkler]

Are there enough water resources to support large cities there anyway? We all know cities like Los Angeles, Phoenix and Las Vegas will get water shortages in the future. Large cities in the desert are not very sustainable, they require a huge amount of resources to function, especially U.S.-style developments which are not exactly known for their energy efficiency (think about all the airconditioning for instance).

Short answer:  yes, but the resources are unlikely to be local.  Large cities in desert areas like Phoenix, Tucson, and Los Angeles are heavily dependent on aqueduct systems.  Power does not have to be locally generated either--much of the intermountain West is also heavily dependent on hydroelectric power borne over high-voltage transmission lines, although there is some local generating capacity as well (think of the Palo Verde nuclear power plant near Phoenix).

As a generalization, in arid areas it is not urban development that gets squeezed out--it is agriculture.  Arizona is a bit of a special case, because the Indian tribes have a special claim on CAP water for agricultural purposes, but in general, in any area where access to water is controlled by a system of water rights allocated according to the principle of prior appropriation (essentially, first user gets the lion's share of the water), cities tend to squeeze out farmers because they can afford to pay more for more senior water rights.

I can see a lot of fishing and a lot of resort development in Baja, but very little farming.

[Truvelo]

There would definitely be coastal resorts and upmarket neighborhoods it if was part of the US. I'm thinking of places such as Malibu where film stars live. Baja California would be full of such places.

[SP Cook]

This is moving towards alt-history, so in that vein:

In OTL (our time line) the two Mexican Baja California states have a population of about 3.5M, about 60% of that in the Tiajuana metro area, which, if added to San Diego froms a metro area of 5M, the 22nd largest metro area in North America.

In this ATL (alternate time line), I would think that San Diego-Tiajuana would be significantly larger.  Probably a metro area of 8M or so.  A potential "wild card" might be that the Navy/Marine Corps might have chosen an area south this area, rather than north of it, for its major inland western presence, meaning that the clear "break" between the LA metro in Orange County, and the SD metro in SD County caused by the military bases might not exist, meaning it would be one developed area from the northern edge of the LA metro all the way down to the southern outskirts of Tiajuana.

South of that, you would see not more irrigation agriculture than you see in OTL.  Probably an economy similar to Florida's.  Coastal towns filled with retirees from AC (Alta California, which would be the name of the state we call California in OTL) drawn by the low taxes in the US state of BC.  I do think that the Navy and Marine Corps would have lots of use for the area, with the things now seen at 29 Palms and such in OTL, finding their way to here.

In transportation, clearly you would see a railroad and I-5, and before that a US 101, heading all the way south to Cabo, although I-5 would probably have been one of the last interstates finished.  Cabo would not be Miami, but it would be a large city, and would have a relationship with Mexico and Mexicans similar to that of Miami and the Carribbean.   

In politics, assuming two states of AC and BC, then BC would be similar in politics to modern Florida.  Retirees looking at their interests, which skews towards the GOP, tempered by the liberalism of where the retirees are from, which would be places like San Francisco, Portland and such, along with LA.  Of course, the idea that BC, rather than Nevada thinks up the "legal gambling" idea first is also and intreging ATL.

Of course in this ATL, the Colorado estuary form the US/Mexico border, and the Sea of Cortez would be an international waterway, and another way to violate the immigration laws would be to be a "boat person".