Tijuana - Demographics

Demographics

Tijuana has a diverse cosmopolitan population which includes migrants from other parts of Mexico, as well as immigrants from all over the globe. Tijuana is the second-most diverse city and is home to a global populace. The city is home to one of Mexico's largest Asian populations, predominantly consists of Chinese immigrants, and to a lesser extent, Koreans and Japanese. Tijuana is also home to a large and rapidly growing population of United States citizens, mostly from Southern California, who have moved to the city to avoid the higher cost of living in the region, while still being able to work in Southern California. Many Latin Americans, notable Argentines, Cubans, and Guatemalans have made Tijuana their home, especially people from Central America and Andean nations. The city is also called home by many Italian, French, Spanish and Lebanese citizens. A large transitory population exists in Tijuana due to border aspirations or deportations.

The majority of Tijuana's migrant Mexican population hail from Sinaloa, Michoacán, Jalisco, Oaxaca, and the Federal District. Because of the diversity of Mexico and the influx of immigrants from almost every region in the country, there are no accurate estimates on ethnicity or race of the current population. The heavy influx of immigrants to the city and municipality of Tijuana has led to job creation in the form of over 700 twin-plant (maquiladora) factories, which serve as the basis of employment for the majority of the working-class people in northern Mexico. The high poverty level in Tijuana is attributed to the city's "magnet status" for people who have come from the poorer south of the nation and citizens from other nations seeking to escape from extreme poverty. Tijuana holds a status that provides the possibility of employment as well as higher education and the dream of crossing the border. Tijuana and Baja California in general have much stronger economies and higher incomes than other Mexican cities along the United States border, as well as more moderated weather.

Tijuana today is one of the fastest growing cities in Mexico with an average of 80,000 people moving to Tijuana yearly. In terms of area, the city grows by approximately three hectares a day, mostly east and south as the city is mostly built out to the beach already with the exception of some canyons. Along with settlements, big business moves in providing supermarkets and retail to marginal areas, along with paved roads. The city experiences the construction of 26,000 new settlements a year that has led to the unregulated, illegal squatter homes that takes place in the hills and valleys of ever expanding Tijuana, most of these areas are yet to be served by city services, including the addition of sidewalks, paving, streetlights, public transit and other services. However, as older and existing squatters are brought into the city services, more marginal areas become occupied by squatters. Mexican cultural attitudes towards the poor are more about tolerance and reluctant acceptance of the problems rather than forcing them into situation where they cannot fend for themselves and/or incarceration.

Squatter areas are home to displaced and uprooted people, among them the indigenous and poverty stricken, deported from USA migrants, considerable numbers of them without Mexican citizenship (from other countries). In recent years, working class suburban housing estates have sprung up in the fringes to provide safe homes and a sense of land ownership, to escape and isolate their families and young ones from the violence of the drug war and squatter areas. Some even more remote areas are drug lords plantations for narcotics, which periodically come to light in the newspapers.

National Population Council (CONAPO) data has estimated that by 2030, growth rates maintaining, the city will become the second largest in Mexico and anchor to the fourth largest metropolitan area in Mexico. The suburban sprawl observed in Tijuana leaves the downtown and beach areas relatively affluent.

While the INEGI Census 2010 estimated the population of Tijuana to be 1.3 million, Tijuana City Council estimates, from 2010, have placed the population closer to two million, at 1.6 million. As funding for cities is based on the populace of the city, the Council worries about receiving adequate funds to provide for the needs of the city.

According to the Second Census of Population and Housing of the year 2010 conducted by the INEGI (National Institute of Statistics, Geography and Informatics) the municipality of Tijuana has 1,559,683 inhabitants. While the metropolitan area of Tijuana, composed of Tijuana Municipality and Rosarito Beach Municipality, has 1,751,302 inhabitants. Tecate Municipality, adjacent to Tijuana Municipality, has not yet been considered by the government as part of the metropolitan area. However, there is great economic and cultural exchange between the cities regions though there are still expanses of rural land. As Tijuana grows, many of its suburbs have been built increasingly inland, and in the direction of Tecate; Valley of the Palms is a large planned city between the two.

As of 2005 the large majority of the city's population, 96%, adhere to the beliefs of Christianity. The denominations are further divided into followers of Catholicism - 61& - and of Protestantism - 35% of the population and additionally observing rapid growth. Consisting of a smaller percentage of the populace, Pentecostalism accounts for 15% of the Christian populace. Other Protestant groups in the city, accounting for 4% of the population, includes Lutherans, Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, Presbyterians, and Baptists. Other denominations in the city include Jehovah's Witnesses, 11% of the city population; Seventh Day Adventist Church, 3% of the city population; Mormonism, 2% of the population while other beliefs occupying a 4% margin in the city include Taoism (among other Asian and European religions) and atheism and agnosticism.

In recent years, as in most of the world, the Catholic religion has reduced its presence in the city; a phenomenon accompanied by the growth of Protestant groups. If current growth rates are observed, in twenty years Protestant religions will account for the majority of the city's religious followers.