A6 Meeting: Public Presentation

Border Comparisons

Here are aerials of different dry-land border cities . The first three are cities along the Brazil-Uruguay border. All these cities have grown around the border, just as many cities grow along a main axis. I have arranged them from most to least "border-developed".

Rivera is the best known free trade zone in the Gaucho border. Its main source of income has been the tax-free shopping, so much so that after going into a Uruguayan cafe for a soda, the owner said, "Gracias, buenas compras!"












Xuí is the southernmost city in Brazil. It is the final stop before Uruguay for those traveling along the Atlantic coast of Brazil. Much like Rivera, it has developed along its major commercial avenue that sits on the Brazil-Uruguay border. The Avenue is the center of their own free trade zone.











Aceguá is also on the border between Brazil and Uruguay, about sixty kilometers south of Bagé. It did not have a free trade zone and has been very underdeveloped in its urban quarters. Its most successful developments are actually many miles outside the urban zone in the form of co-ops and horse farms. In 2007 the free trade zone was announced in the city and there is speculation that the city will turn into another shopping area for Brazilian Gauchos. So far, it is a distribution point for smuggled produce into Uruguay.











Just for the sake of comparison, here is Tijuana. The severe cut between the US and Mexico is such a stark contrast with the seamless border between Brazil and Uruguay that one must wonder how this "fronteira" has not been exploited more thoroughly yet.

How I put myself in danger and didn't even know

In Google-ing for Aceguá, I found a news article - perhaps the only news ever coming from Aceguá- that happened on the same day that I was there taking pictures and video and being interrogated by the look-outs. Turns out the same contraband group that I caught on camera was caught some miles down the highway with over five tons of contraband Brazilian fruits and vegetables. It looks like I should stay away from Aceguá for a little while, or at least go in a different car, so that they don't blame me for their capture...

Here is the original news feed:

Uruguai apreende contrabando brasileiro de frutas e verduras

2008/12/26

MONTEVIDÉU (AFP) — Funcionários da Alfândega uruguaia apreenderam nesta sexta-feira mais de cinco toneladas de frutas e verduras produzidas no Brasil e que entraram ilegalmente no Uruguai, informaram autoridades.

A apreensão ocorreu na região da fronteira com o Brasil, entre as cidades de Melo e Aceguá, a cerca de 400 km de Montevidéu.

No total, foram apreendidos 5.400 quilos de batatas, cenouras, mangas, mamões e bananas, acondicionados em caixas sem identificação do produtor ou importador, como determina a legislação uruguaia.

Segundo a Alfândega, o contrabando entrava no Uruguai transportado por motos, do território brasileiro, e era distribuído entre diversos varejistas.

and translated:

Uruguay captures contraband of Brazilian fruits and vegetables

2008/12/26

MONTEVIDEO (AFP) — Uruguayan customs workers apprehended this Friday more than five tons of fruits and vegetables produced in Brazil and illegally entered into Uruguay, inform authorities.

The apprehension occurred in the frontier region with Brazil, between the cities of Melo and Aceguá, about 400 km from Montevideo.

In total, there were 5,400 kg of potatoes, carrots, mangoes, melons, and bananas in boxes with no identity of producer or importer, as is required by Uruguayan legislature.

According to customs, the contraband entered Uruguay by motorcycles, from the Brazilian territory, and were distributed to diverse vendors.

Images of Aceguá

Aceguá is the city I intend on using as my project site. It has lived off its position on the Brazilian-Uruguay border and has recently been granted a free trade zone. I was surprised to find that the city had not changed much since the first time I passed through three years ago. I was also surprised to find an elaborate, albeit meager, contraband operation dealing Brazilian produce into Uruguay. My cameras called attention to the popcorn vendor, who happened to be a look-out, and he eventually interrogated me about my presence there. I played the dumb tourist, but still left rather fast with all my incriminating photage.

On the way back to Bagé, we passed through a German colony between the two cities called Colonia Nova. It was established as a cooperative in the 1950s by German immigrants producing dairy goods. I will post more information on the co-op later.

Images of Santana do Livramento and Rivera

Pictures from the border city of Santana do Livramento, Brazil, and Rivera, Uruguay. Essentially the city has developed along its border driven by a free trade zone. The dividing avenue is a site for informal shops and a variety of goods, generally aimed at the lower class. The streets off that avenue house several duty free shops aimed at the middle and upper classes.

Disney's Pampas

In the 1940s, Walt Disney released several short films and cartoons of travels through South America packaged as Saludos Amigos (1942) and The Three Caballeros (1944). Through the two movies, Disney portrayed pieces of the pampas and life in the Platine regions of South America. Here are some clips from those movies. Please email me if the clips are taken off the server.

The Argentine Pampas


Goofy the Gaucho


Stereotypical Rio

The Pentagon's New Map

In my search for world maps and the global situation of development, I came about Thomas P.M. Barnett's The Pentagon's New Map. In his web site http://www.thomaspmbarnett.com/, he talks about the risks of Brazil and Argentina:

3) BRAZIL AND ARGENTINA Both on the bubble between the Gap and the Functioning Core. Both played the globalization game to hilt in nineties and both feel abused now. The danger of falling off the wagon and going self-destructively leftist or rightist is very real. • No military threats to speak of, except against their own democracies (the return of the generals). • South American alliance MERCOSUR tries to carve out its own reality while Washington pushes Free Trade of Americas, but we may have to settle for agreements with Chile or for pulling only Chile into bigger NAFTA. Will Brazil and Argentina force themselves to be left out and then resent it? • Amazon a large ungovernable area for Brazil, plus all that environmental damage continues to pile up. Will the world eventually care enough to step in?

Here is his map (by William McNulty), that delineates the "functioning core" and "non-integrated gap" zones of the world.



In reference to the Amazon, he fact that a country cannot manage its own territory is insulting, regardless of the fact that the administration of the Amazon really is out of control. The way he presents it is reminiscent of the fiasco from about seven years ago when a textbook mapped the Amazon as an international zone. Help is of course welcome, but in non military or territorial means.

The first question referring to the Mercosul, FTA, and NAFTA is valid. South America is divided into two drifting pieces, the leftist underdeveloped northwest and the more developed south. Columbia is an exception in the northwest, so much so that it has negociated with NAFTA more than any other country in South America. Peru is perhaps the country I've seen the most micro-investment headway.

Taking the "non-intergrated gap" map from Barnett's book and coupling it with general regions of high productivity in the continent, the Pampas is evidently the shaft of land that seems to be linking the two "functioning cores" of South America. Considering the richness of the location of the Fronteira (Brazil-Uruguay border region), it is impossible to assume that no development will occur in this region, and it is obviously lacking proper administration since it is sitting between the richest zones of the continent.

Get to Know a State

The diagram below generally maps out the land uses and reasons for being of the different regions of the southern half of the state of Rio Grande do Sul. The dark black border is the boundary between Uruguay and Brazil.




Below is a scale comparison of the state of Rio Grande do Sul overlaid on the Bos-Wash megalopolis. The state is large enough to capture Richmond to New York City to Pittsburg to Buffalo and everything in between.




Here is another scale comparison encompassing most of the major Italian cities.