January 12, 2006 updated July 8, 2006

The Future of Mexico, by Gary Hoover

(Read Gary's bio)

My New Years’ trip to Mexico was one of those eye-openers.  Like most Americans, I have seen more of border town and resort Mexico over the years than I have the real heart of Mexico.  And even the heart-of-Mexico experiences focused on Mexico City, an urban animal unto itself.  Reactions to the capital, border towns, and resort towns range broadly from poverty dependent on a trickle from tourism to corruption and crime and pollution, but rarely much that is more positive.  But at least 60-70% of the Mexican people live neither in Mexico City nor in border towns and resort towns.  Based on my conversations and observations, this “real Mexico” is virtually unknown to most of us in the United States.

So I spent a week focused on the two medium sized cities of Queretaro and Guanajuato, north of Mexico City in the agricultural region known as the Bajio.  Let me focus on Queretaro.  In 1995, this metropolitan area had 680,000 residents, placing it at approximately the same size (at that time) as Akron, Albuquerque, Baton Rouge, or Raleigh-Cary.  Today its population approaches a million.  So this is a real “middle American” city.  Like Guanajuato, it is a historic Spanish Colonial City, much of whose initial wealth came from silver.  The city presented a number of surprises to me: safe, clean, prosperous, happy.  It was not so surprising that it was colorful, joyful, full of candy and soda, and Catholic.  Nor was I shocked that there were almost no American tourists, but plenty from Mexico – this is one of the most historic cities in the nation, having played a key role in the Mexican revolutions.  For $130 per night, I stayed in an 18th century palace in the heart of this beautiful city.

What really made me think, however, was the clear change I noted since my first visit to interior Mexico 20 years ago.  People were healthier, better fed, and had shoes on.  Most noticeable to me (the old book collector) was the number of large bookstores in this mid-sized city – something that would not have been true 20 years ago.  And the city is also full of cultural venues, led by 6 really outstanding museums.

On no previous visit to Mexico had I felt anywhere near as at home as I did on this visit.  Queretaro, a service and manufacturing center, is clearly a prosperous, middle class city on the rise.  In many ways, it was also like a trip back to the 50s – the downtown is full of bustle, everyone came downtown for the church services and to celebrate Christmas (replete with giant public Nativity scene) and New Years’.  The main mode of intercity travel are state-of-the-art buses (their huge, modern bus station reminded me of LAX airport). The street sellers selling holiday punch would pop some tequila in at your request – under the table.  This is still not a first world nation – the clothes and appurtenances of life reflect a simpler, less evolved consumer society.  But every little kid had a top or a pull-toy or a balloon, and they played with them with the same enthusiasm that we did in the US in the 50s.  The amount of family continuity and love was apparent on every park bench and in every laugh.  It seemed almost a taste of Ozzie and Harriet.

Guanajuato, one of the most physically spectacular and photogenic cities of the Western Hemisphere is much smaller and had more mysterious hillside alleys and more “foreign” tourists than Queretaro.  The excellent 1862 hotel on the main square was well under $100.  But Guanajuato was otherwise much the same – an emerging, prosperous, confident, happy town.   Both had great, affordable restaurants.  And both had weather that would put San Diego to shame.

(I also spent one night in San Miguel de Allende, the “Santa Fe of Mexico,” but this beautiful little town had much less to say about the present and future of Mexico than the other cities; San Miguel de Allende is more about wealthy Americans.)

While I realize that some regions of Mexico are much more troubled, such as southern Chiapas, I also know that other areas are as strong or stronger than this region – Monterrey is very strong and Guadalajara has a great reputation (I have not yet visited it), as do San Luis Potosi and Saltillo.  I know from my experiences with the automotive industries that Mexican factories are some of the highest quality factories in the world. (My own Chrysler PT Cruiser, made in Mexico, is rated one of the most reliable cars sold in the US, and my car supports this statistic with under $10 in repairs in the first 54,000 miles.)

As a lifelong retailer, one of the most important stops for me in all these cities were the supermarkets.  Whether operated by US companies like Wal-Mart or HEB or the many Mexican competitors, this key indicator of quality of life is at a very high level in these Mexican cities – affordable prices accessible to most everyone, tremendous varieties of fresh fruits and vegetables from around the world, high standards of operation and cleanliness, and most of the other things we Americans take for granted but which used to be unknowns in the “third world.”

My bottom line is that what I saw – and which I believe represents a bigger and bigger share of the Mexican experience – is an emerging nation not unlike those I have visited in Asia so often.  We know that nations can and do change – in 1950 Korea and Mexico had the same household income, but today Korea’s figure is double that of Mexico.  Mexico, and most of Latin America, has been held back by traditional power structures, corruption, and an addiction to the delusions of Marxism (and the suffering and poverty caused by it).

But the world is changing, and Mexico is changing with it.  While President Fox may not have lived up to all the hopes of his 2000 election as Mexico’s first truly independent President, he still moved things ahead.  He and his predecessor courageously signed up for NAFTA, one of the best things to happen to Mexico and the United States in the last 50 years, as understood by both Presidents Clinton and Bush.  A new President was elected this week – it looks like he will continue this forward motion.  (He had trailed the left-of-center opposition in the early polls but pulled out a squeaker – I suspect supported by the same emerging middle class that I witnessed.)

Mexico is not the only Latin nation doing well – Costa Rica, Argentina, and Chile all have higher average incomes than Mexico.  I hear of good energy in Panama and El Salvador, and have witnessed it in Guatemala and Brazil.  Of course there are others going the other way – both Venezuela and Bolivia have chosen leaders who seem committed to reversing any hope for their citizens, returning to the Marxist death-spiral.  But, like Asia and other places, the clock is moving forward and these nations likely cannot stay in the dark ages forever.  Especially as neighbors like Chile and Mexico prove the power of free markets to enrich the people.

Out of this array of observations and tendencies, after a week in Mexico, I began to see a vision of the future that I had not seen before.  It can be so hard to extricate our eyes from the fog of the present.  But I now clearly see a world in which:

• Life in Queretaro is in fact much like life in Akron – or Raleigh.
• Tourists, especially Spanish-speaking tourists, come from all over the world to admire and enjoy great centers like Queretaro and Guanajuato.
• Incomes (and wage rates) in the United States and Mexico become closer and closer (remember that only 60 years ago the differences between Mississippi and Massachusetts seemed equally daunting).
• The mad rush to cross the border into the US at any cost, illegally, diminishes substantially.
• The border between the two nations becomes a normal border – like the one we have with Canada today or, better yet, the one that Germany has with France.
• Mexican people can more readily cross that border and enjoy the wonders of the United States, and those of us from the US can do the same in beautiful (and heretofore unknown) Mexico.

This, I realize, is a very different world from that of today, and for most a difficult world to imagine.  But to me the real issue is not whether this will be reality, but how soon.  My own guess is that we are talking about 40 to 70 years from now.  Much depends on actions taken by the governments of the two countries, upon whether our leaders can see and want to create such a future.  There is no question in my heart that this is what the people of the two countries want and desire.  Our physically, chronologically, and culturally long border begs for this unity.  Over the years, what happens in our own hemisphere will be as important or more important than what happens on the other side of the globe.  The United States will increasingly become a Latin nation over the next 100 years – that outcome is already in the demographic cards. 

Based on what I observed on my recent trip, I believe the optimistic vision described above is inevitable, and that it will be one of the best things to ever happen to the two nations, creating a large unified market for people, ideas, services, and travel.  It is only a matter of time.

(Read Gary's bio)

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