10.1177/107049602237158 JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENT & DEVELOPMENT Bringas / MEXICAN GOVERNMENT POLICIES POLICY ANALYSIS Baja California and California’s Merging Tourist Corridors: The Influence of Mexican Government Policies NORA L. BRINGAS-RÁBAGO This article aims to show how the Mexican government’s development policies have contributed to promoting coastal regions whose economic base rests on tourist activity. In this context, it describes the pattern of development taken by urbanization within a tourism development zone in northern Mexico: the Tijuana-Ensenada Coastal Corridor (Corredor Costero Tijuana-Ensenada), in Baja California. The article is concerned with the events that have influenced the zone’s current configuration, that is, how and under what conditions tour- ism’s process of implantation in space has occurred and what mechanisms have facilitated it. The existence of natural resources and historical landmarks to a large extent determines tourism flows to a region, as do other factors such as tourists’ discretionary income levels and preferences, for example. With the onset of mass tourism, the beach-sun combination became the main motivating factor for people to travel great distances in search of greater enjoyment of their leisure time. This marked the start of a change in how the space of tourism is valued: from being a space that is the object of observation and contemplation, it becomes a space that is consumed and coveted. The strong tourism pressures to which coastal zones are sub- jected arose from this transition (Lozato-Giotart, 1993). Throughout human history, coastal zones have occupied a strategic place for the development of commerce as well as for the expansion and domination of one people over others. Therefore, coastal zones in and of themselves became a scarce resource that must be conserved and pre- served through rational use. This does not mean that they cannot be used for commercial, industrial, or transportation ends or for the estab- lishment of tourist zones. But it must be done with caution because the advantage that is the commodity’s scarcity is what determines its demand. This is why speculation often occurs with this type of space. 267 Journal of Environment & Development, Vol. 11, No. 3, September 2002 267-296 DOI: 10.1177/107049602237158 © 2002 Sage Publications