Blurred Borders - International Community Foundation

in Mexico reported having visiting Tijuana within the last year; while 55% of those born in San
Diegan reported doing so. While this may be an obvious conclusion, given that the Hispanic
proportion of San Diego County’s population is increasing, and that 84% of the County’s
Hispanics are of Mexican descent, it is clear that the overall proportion of San Diegans that
visit Tijuana at least once per year will be steadily increasing.
4. Frequency of Border Crossings
Survey participants were also asked how frequently they crossed the border (including offering
them the option of “never”):
Which best describes how
frequently you cross the border?
Table 1F: Frequency of Crossing
Daily or
almost daily
A-5
1 to 2
times per
week
1 to 2
times per
month
Several
times per
year
Once per
year
Never
SD-COMBINED (n=612) 4.6% 7.2% 14.7% 23.2% 30.2% 20.1%
SD-ENGLISH 2.6% 4.7% 12.7% 23.6% 33.6% 22.7%
SD-SPANISH 16.9% 22.9% 27.7% 20.5% 8.4% 3.6%
San Diego - By Sub-Region
South San Diego (n=204) 11.3% 17.2% 19.1% 24.5% 18.1% 9.8%
Central San Diego (n=190) 0.5% 4.2% 16.8% 24.7% 36.3% 17.4%
North San Diego (n=211) 1.9% 0.5% 8.5% 20.4% 36.5% 32.2%
TIJUANA (n=412) 12.4% 19.2% 22.8% 6.3% 6.3% 33.0%
It is interesting to note that this more “precise” question (offering respondents more specific
border crossing frequency options) elicited almost equal “visitation frequencies” to Tijuana as
the above “Last Visit” question:
� In the earlier question (Table 1D), 79.4% of San Diegans stated that the last time they’d
visited Tijuana was either “Less than one year” or during the last “1-3 years”. In the
Frequency question (Table 1F), 79.9% of San Diegans stated that they visited Tijuana
“Once a year” or more frequently. The combination of the results of these two questions
would strongly support the conclusion that approximately 79% of San Diegans visit
Tijuana around once each year – or more frequently. This conclusion further bolsters
the argument that regional decision-makers should pay more attention to our border
crossing and our complex relationship (both positives and negatives) with Tijuana.
� These results would also imply that given the County’s population of approximately 2
million adults (i.e.: 18 years or older), there are about 1.5 million San Diegans that
visit Tijuana every year (or thereabouts). About 530,000 San Diegans visit Tijuana
at least once per month.