In my current project, I am photographing results of the cross-border transmigration of building materials and even small suburban homes from San Diego to Tijuana. Although located only 20 miles apart, few cities could be more different from each other. San Diego calls itself “America’s finest city,” boasting some of the wealthiest subdivisions in the country, while Tijuana is viewed as decadent, transient and very poor.

Tijuana receives and recycles San Diego’s abandoned structures, re-using and reconstructing materials into buildings that offer new opportunities for living and working. The cross-border movement of traditional American tract homes has also influenced new housing design in Tijuana. Tijuana’s new suburban developments are constructed using a type of “tiny box” architecture surprisingly reminiscent of post-World War II era planned communities in the U.S.