Human Development and the US-Mexico Border

Andrew Sullivan links to a map from the 2009 Human Development Report, which uses HDI, the Human Development Index, as a measure of the general level of development for jurisdictions on both sides of the US-Mexico border:



As Steven Taylor notes:

What is interesting is that the lowest HDI county on the US side (Starr County Texas) is higher than the highest HDI municipality in Mexico (i.e., Mexicali).

This is, of course, likely not a shock to anyone paying even a modicum of attention to the situation. Still, it continues to underscore that fundamental aspect of this situation: it is the disparity of wealth between the two countries that continues to create the synergy of migration over the border. As I keep saying: any policy that ignores this fact will fail. As such, calls for massive deportations or that assumes it is possible to stop migration over the border is naught more than fantasy. “Seal the border!” is a slogan, not a viable policy.

That's true. It also points up what ought to be an obvious truth about immigration from Mexico and other relatively poor countries to the United States: it is comprised mostly of individuals who are driven by lack of economic opportunity to leave their homeland in order to exchange their labor for money. That many people feel so threatened by this class of people, which is already among the most powerless in society, has always baffled me.

Also: as long-time readers of this blog know, I like nothing better than using HDI for various countries as a frame of reference for apprehending the significance of HDI ratings for various sub-national jurisdictions! And so, here are selected HDI-comparable nations (based on this table (pdf) from the same organization) for each of the five HDI ranges indicated on the map (with countries listed in ascending order of HDI):

.636-.700 - Morocco, Botswana, South Africa, Tajikistan, Vanuatu, Kyrgyzstan, Guatemala, Nicaragua

.701-.765 - Uzbekistan, Honduras, Egypt, Vietnam, Mongolia, Bolivia, Indonesia, Philippines, El Salvador, Algeria, China, Georgia

.766-.830 - Dominican Republic, Jordan, Belize, Tonga, Ukraine, Thailand, Peru, Turkey, Kazakhstan, Brazil, Serbia, Malaysia, Venezuela

.831-.895 - Panama, Bulgaria, Oman, Mexico, Costa Rica, Cuba, Argentina, Lithuania, Chile, Hungary, Malta

.896-.950 - Czech Republic, Portugal, UAE, Singapore, Slovenia, South Korea, Israel, Germany, UK, Italy, Belgium, United States

Net Migration in the US

An interesting interactive migration map from Forbes shows net migration for 2008 for every county in the US:



You can see migration to a given county from any other county in the country. E.g., 66 people moved from Dane County, WI (Madison) in 2008, and 34 moved in the opposite direction. Or: 149 people moved from Harris County, TX (Houston) to Queens, NY, but 449 made the opposite trip. Also, this being Forbes, matters economic are considered integral, so per capita income for migrants is also shown. This is pretty interesting, actually, as it is suggestive of the sort of moving involved: the average income for folks making the leap between high-tech hubs San Mateo, CA and Travis County, TX (Austin) was $74,500. For those moving from Cameron County, TX on the Mexican border to Clark County, NV (Las Vegas) it was just $12,900.

Human Migration

I like this map of the spread of humans across the planet.



The projection (some kind of oblique mercator?) [UPDATE: it's a Dymaxion map, apparently.] makes the course of human migration seem like the natural consequence of the spatial relationships between the continents - which of course is just what it was. (It also makes the hypothesized route to North America actually seem like easily the most sensible way to get from Europe to the New World, though I don't know what that dashed line is indicating; it seems to be suggesting that Europeans were emigrating to eastern Greenland during the Stone Age, but I've never heard of such a thing.)

The blue hatchmarked lines indicate the extent of ice and tundra during the last ice age. The numbers are thousand of years before the present, and the corresponding colored arcs on the map indicate the spread of humans at those times. According to this map, migration was most rapid through ice-free southern Asia. People actually arrived in Australia before they ever made it to Europe, which climatically was not nearly as rosy as it is today. It took still longer to make it to northeastern Asia, and then the Western Hemisphere was the last area to become populated when a land bridge allowed people to cross over from Asia.

The letters indicate mitochondrial DNA haplogroups. If they mean something to you, then bully. If not, I'm afraid I'm not qualified to explain them. I do like the map's pretty colors, though.