ABSTRACT
Ciudad Juárez, like other cities along the United States-Mexico Border, is presently in the midst of a major period of growth and reorientation. The Border Industrialization Program, launched in the mid-1960s and currently accounting for more than 80,000 manufacturing jobs, is helping to transform Cd. Juárez from a tourist and transportation town into a large industrial city specializing in labor-intensive assembly production (Huhn 1981; Martínez 1978). In-migration from elsewhere in Mexico and a high rate of natural increase have caused the city's population to swell from the 1970 census figure of 424,000 to a 1980 census total of 663,094, a 56 percent increase in ten years. The actual 1980 population has been put as high as 1 million by some observers who feel that the census undercounted many of the temporary residents who continually swell the city's population as they search for work or pause for a time while in transit between the north and south. Whatever the actual figure, it is clear that continued rapid growth has altered the nature of Cd. Juárez.
