MEXICO: Ciudad Juárez Or Juarez City

Ciudad Juárez is the largest city in the Mexican state of Chihuahua.

Commonly referred to by locals as simply Juárez, and known as Paso del Norte (Pass of the North) until 1888,Juárez is the seat of the municipality of Juárez with an estimated population of 1.5 million people.The city lies on the Rio Grande or Río Bravo del Norte, south of El Paso, Texas, United States.

Together with the surrounding areas, the cities form El Paso–Juárez, the second largest binational metropolitan area on the Mexico–U.S. border after San Diego–Tijuana, with a combined population of over 2.7 million people.

There are four international ports of entry connecting Ciudad Juárez and El Paso, including the Bridge of the Americas, Ysleta International Bridge, Paso del Norte Bridge and Stanton Street Bridge. These combined allowed 22,958,472 crossings in 2008,making Ciudad Juárez a major point of entry and transportation into the U.S. for all of central northern Mexico.

The city has a growing industrial center which is made up in large part by more than 300 maquiladoras (assembly plants) located in and around the city.

According to a 2007 New York Times article, Ciudad Juárez "is now absorbing more new industrial real estate space than any other North American city."In 2008, fDi Magazine designated Ciudad Juárez "The City of the Future."

Between the 1960s and 1990s, Juárez saw a high level of population growth due in part to the newly established maquiladoras. The end of the Bracero Program also brought workers back from border cities in the U.S. through Ciudad Juárez, contributing to the growing number of citizens.

The average annual growth in population over a 10-year period [1990–2000] was 5.3%.According to the 2010 population census, the city had 1,321,004 inhabitants, while the municipality had 1,332,131 inhabitants. During the last decades the city has received migrants from Mexico's interior, some figures state that 32% of the city's population originate outside the state of Chihuahua, mainly from the states of Durango (9.9%), Coahuila (6.3%), Veracruz (3.7%) and Zacatecas (3.5%), as well as from Mexico City (1.7%).

Though most new residents are Mexican, some also immigrate from Central American countries, such as Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua.

However, a March 2009 article noted there has been a mass exodus of people who could afford to leave the city due to the ongoing violence from the Mexican Drug War. The article quoted a city planning department estimate of over 116,000 abandoned homes, which could roughly be the equivalent of 400,000 people who have left the city due to the violence.

Ciudad Juárez has many affluent neighborhoods, such as Campestre, Campos Elíseos, and Misión de Los Lagos. Other neighborhoods, including Anapra, Chaveña, and Anáhuac, would be considered more marginal, while the remaining neighborhoods in Juárez represent the middle- to working-class, for example, Infonavit, Las Misiones, Valle de Juárez, Lindavista, Altavista, Guadalajara, Galeana, Flores Magón, Mariano Escobedo, Los Nogales, and Independencia.

The El Paso Regional Economic Development Corporation indicated that Ciudad Juárez is the metropolis absorbing more new industrial real estate space than any other North American city.

The El Paso–Juárez area is a major manufacturing center. CommScope, Electrolux, Bosch, Foxconn, Flextronics, Lexmark, Delphi, Visteon, Johnson Controls, Toro, Lear, Boeing, Cardinal Health, Yazaki, Sumitomo, and Siemens are some of the foreign companies that have chosen Ciudad Juárez for their business operations.

The Mexican state of Chihuahua is frequently among the top five states in Mexico with the most foreign investment.Many foreign retail, banking, and fast-food businesses have locations within Juárez.

In the 1990s, traditional brick kilns have made up a big part of the economic informal sector. These were typically located in the poorer regions of Juárez. The kilns used open air fires, where certain materials that were burned generated a lot of air pollution.

Along with rapid industrialization, small brick kilns have been a big contributor to the high amount of air pollution in Ciudad Juárez.

The main public transportation system in the city is the Public Bus System. The public buses run the main streets of Cd. Juárez throughout the day, costing seven pesos (less than 40 cents) to ride one.

Due the aging current bus fleet being considered potentially outdated, the Municipal Government is working on replacing the buses with new ones, along with improving the bus stops, such as by equipping them with shade.

The ViveBus Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system opened to the public in November 2013 with the first route of five planned. The project was made a reality with the collaboration of the local municipal government, the private enterprise of Integradora de Transporte de Juarez (INTRA) as well as other city government agencies.

Studies have shown that the current bus system averages 8 mph (13 km/h) while the new system is projected to average 16 mph (26 km/h). The BRT system studies conducted by the Instituto Municipal de Investigacion Y Planeacion project a daily ridership of 40,000.

The first of the five routes opened to users in late 2013 and is officially named Presidencia-Tierra Nueva and has 34 stations distributed along the north to south corridor. The route starts at Avenida Francisco Villa, follows north to Eje Vial Norte-Sur then veers left at Zaragoza Blvd. and ends at Avenida Independencia and the elevated Carretera Federal 2.

The city is served by Abraham González International Airport, with flights to several Mexican cities. It accommodates national and international air traffic for the city. Nearby El Paso International Airport handles flights to cities within the United States.

The first bridge to cross the Rio Grande at El Paso del Norte was built in the time of New Spain, over 250 years ago, from wood hauled in from Santa FeToday, this bridge is honored by the modern Santa Fe Street Bridge, and Santa Fe Street in downtown El Paso.

Several bridges serve the El Paso–Ciudad Juárez area in addition to the Paso Del Norte Bridge also known as the Santa Fe Street Bridge, including the Bridge of the Americas, Stanton Street Bridge, and the Ysleta Bridge also known as the Zaragoza Bridge.

There is also a land crossing at nearby Santa Teresa, New Mexico, and the Fabens–Caseta International Bridge in nearby Fabens, Texas.

Violence towards women in the municipality has increased dramatically in the past twenty years.Since the early 1990s, approximately 370 girls and women have been murdered and at least 400 women have been reported missing. Escalating turf wars between the rival Juárez and Sinaloa Cartels led to increasingly brutal violence in the city beginning in 2007.

The Juárez police department had approximately 800 officers dismissed in an effort to clean up corruption within its ranks.Recruitment goals set by the department called for the force to more than double.

In 2009, a vigilante group calling itself Juárez Citizens Command threatened to take action to attempt to put a stop to all the perpetrators of violence if the government continued to fail to curb the violence in the city. Government officials expressed concern that such vigilantism would contribute to further instability and violence.

In 2008, General Moreno and the Third Infantry Company took over the fight against the cartels in town. They were removed in 2009, with the general and 29 of his associates now in custody and awaiting trial for charges of murder and civil rights violations.

In response to increasing violence in the city, the presence of the Mexican Armed Forces and Federal Police has almost doubled. As of March 2009, at least 4500 soldiers and federal police were in the city to curtail mostly drug cartel related violence.By August 2009 there were more than 7500 soldiers augmented by an expanded and highly restaffed municipal police force.

As of January 2013, Juárez's murder rate placed #37 of the highest reported in the world at 38 murders per 100,000 inhabitants. This marked a decrease of 70% compared to 2008 when the rate was 130 murders per 100,000 inhabitants and represented #1 in the statistic and exceeded second-place Caracas' statistic of 96 murders per 100,000 inhabitants by 35% for the same period.

Journalist Charles Bowden, in an August 2008 GQ article, wrote that multiple factors, including drug violence, government corruption and poverty led to a dispirited and disorderly atmosphere that permeated the city.

After the homicide rates escalated to the point of making Ciudad Juárez the most violent city in the world, the city has seen a significant and steady decline in violent crime.In 2012, homicides were at their lowest rate since 2007 when drug violence flared between the Sinaloa and Juárez Cartel.

That trend has continued in 2015 with 300 homicides reported, the lowest number since 2006. Explanations for the rapid decline in violence include the success of the Sinaloa Cartel in defeating its rivals, as well as federal, state and local government efforts to combat crime and improve the city's quality of life.

Although, there are no clear reasons why crime was reduced, there are theories. For example, some say that gangs or cartels were behind the new peace.Others think it is possible that much of the violence stopped because the cartel war between Juárez and Sinaloa ended.Something else that may have contributed to the new-found peace is that many policemen with cartel ties were either arrested or dismissed.

In addition, A group of local leaders called "La Mesa de Seguridad y Justicia" came together to figure out how to stop crime. The group is a liaison between government and citizens and it allows people to talk about safety concerns.Also, many companies were being extorted, so an anti-extortion squad was created to combat extortion.

The city's efforts to combat crime worked as, crime was significantly reduced from 2010 to 2014, with 3,500 homicides in 2010 and 430 in 2014. In 2015, there were only 311 homicides.

Crime reduction has inspired more business in the city.Some citizens left because of the violence but have since returned with their families. Many of those people had moved their businesses to El Paso.In addition, U.S companies are investing more in Juárez.

Community centers work with victims of crime and teach women how to defend themselves.Citizens have also taken it upon themselves to form neighborhood watch groups and patrol neighborhoods."La Fundacion Comunitaria de la Frontera Norte" is giving young people career opportunities and giving people hope.

In addition, city officials have said that they have plans to increase tourism in the city.For example, in April 2015, the city created a new campaign to increase tourism called "Juarez is waiting for you".That same month, U.S representative Roberto O'Rourke visited Juarez to give a speech about how much Juarez has changed in a positive way.

A children's museum was opened in honor of the children who lost their parents during the violent years.Businesses that were closed because of the violence and extortion have reopened in recent years. The city of Juarez was depicted in the movie Sicario, and the city was upset because the movie does not reflect the efforts that have been made to reduce crime.