Anonymous - 11-17-2003 at 11:42 AM
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/11/17/1069027049246.html
US retirees are moving to Mexico in search of a freer, cheaper life.
By Caroline Overington.
November 18, 2003
For about a century, it was generally accepted that Americans moved to Mexico only if they were on the run, avoiding the draft, or addicted to drugs.
That attitude is changing. As The New York Times reported last month, slowly but surely, hectare by hectare, parts of Mexico have become like US
colonies, where English is the main language, and the dollar is the local currency.
Huge tracts of land, especially along the Baja Peninsula south of San Diego, are now owned by Americans. Not directly, of course, since it remains
ostensibly illegal for foreign citizens (read: Americans) to buy land within 100 kilometres of the Mexican coast. Yet west coast accents are
everywhere.
"It's the new land rush," says Jim Hogg, 48, who is part of that rush. "It's no longer go west, young man. It's go south, old man, and eat shellfish
all day."
What he means is that most of the new arrivals are retirees, who have found themselves active at 65, but not rich. Pensions in the US pay about $US800
($1110) a month, and while you can't live in Florida or coastal California on so little money, you can live in Mexico. Or, as the Financial Times put
it: "Baby Boom, Meet Property Boom."
Americans are getting around the rules on property ownership (which were supposed to prevent Americans from buying up all the beachfront property)
because the Mexican Government wants foreign capital. In 1997, it changed its own laws, to allow foreigners to buy land through Mexican trust funds
held at Mexican banks.
The trend should not be overstated: the traffic between Mexico and its wealthy neighbour is still almost entirely one-way, with 500,000 people trying
to cross the border every year (that's just the number US officials catch). But it can no longer be ignored.
Some real estate agents, who clearly have a vested interest in the matter, say there may be as many as a million Americans living in Mexico, many of
them in retirement villages on the Pacific Ocean, where two-bedroom units cost about $US150,000 (not bad, considering the daily wage in Mexico is
around $US5).
Not everybody is retired, of course. Hogg lives in a village of 350 houses in a mountain range more than 600 kilometres south of the border. In the
US, he was an anthropologist. Now he installs water systems for Mexican Indians.
He likes Mexico's "fewer rules."
"The US can be claustrophobic. Like when you drive a car, they can pull you over for a chip in the windscreen, or not wearing a seatbelt, or your
tail-light is out. In Mexico, kids learn to drive at the age of 12, and the police are completely corrupt, and you can skate around most things. And
people leave you alone. There's a benign neglect that I like."
In the village where Hogg lives, homes cost about $US500 to build, although he lives in a massive house with stone walls 30 centimetres thick and huge
fireplaces, and which was built by missionaries, and comes with staff. It cost about $US20,000, which is one-tenth what a family home costs in his
home state, Washington.
Others are doing even better. Talk to Nadine and Henry Laxen, although not between 2pm and 5pm, since that's when they have their siesta. The rest of
the time it's bridge, tennis, walking on the beach, or taking in a movie, at a cinema where the popcorn costs 80 cents.
Mr Laxen, 50, met his wife, Nadine, also 50, at Club Med in Mexico in 1990.
A year later, they bought a house in Mazatlan. The couple spend about nine months of the year in Mexico, "but get out in the summer, when it's 100
degrees and 100 per cent humidity. Horrible."
Mr Laxen said friends always ask him about "bandits, the peso, and the quality of the water". He tells them to use American banks, water filters and
common sense.
He has detected little debate about whether more Americans are welcome, or whether they are changing the local culture, for better or worse.
"Americans are well treated because they spend money," he says.
"And Americans don't come to Mexico to look for jobs, so there's no problem. I haven't heard anybody saying it's a takeover of Mexico."
'Generation gringo': more younger Americans are moving to Mexico
Anonymous - 11-17-2003 at 11:46 AM
http://www.athensnews.com/issue/article.php3?story_id=14668
2003-11-17
By Louis Nevaer
MEXICO CITY -- In the last decade, an estimated half million Americans moved permanently to Mexico, making the United States' southern neighbor the
country with the most U.S. expatriates in the world.
Not since the conclusion of the American Civil War -- when thousand of Southerners emigrated to Mexico -- have so many Americans moved to Mexico.
"A generation ago, older Americans would move to San Miguel, or Lake Chapala, or Mexico City," says Joann Andrews, who has lived in Merida, a large
city on the Yucatan peninsula, since the 1950s. "But now, there are Americans setting down roots throughout the entire country. Americans have finally
discovered the beauty of their most populous neighbor."
Officials at the American embassy estimate that "officially" more than 600,000 American citizens live permanently in Mexico, but concede the actual
number is closer to 800,000. Treasury Department officials in Washington estimate that the number of Treasury checks -- Social Security, Veteran
Administrations, tax refunds -- sent to Mexico is "in the ballpark of 750,000."
In Baja California, an estimated 100,000 Americans have created the first North American land rush of the 21st century. The Yucatan peninsula has more
American retirees than some cities in southern Florida.
"When I first moved to Mexico, my family and friends thought I was nuts," says Skip Connors, a Vietnam veteran who has lived in Mexico since the
1990s. "But the quality of life I enjoy here, the friendships I have made, and the peace of mind that I have living where people treat each other with
respect and decency has saved me."
For decades, most Americans living in Mexico were retirees. But something of greater consequence than American-style retirement communities is taking
shape. Mexico is confronting the cultural and socioeconomic impact of "Generation Gringo": young, working-age American migrants who are starting
families.
Hundreds of thousands of American youth have been descending on Cancun since the mid-1990s. Many have strong bonds with Mexico, remembering their
"discovery" of a safe, friendly and fun country on vacations during their school years. "The best time my sorority sisters and I ever had was a trip
to Cancun," says Shelby Reed, who is in her mid-20s and says she wants to live in Mexico. "My father was horrified, saying, 'You won't be able to
drink the water.'"
Reed laughs. "We've been back so many times, my parents are now thinking of buying a winter home in Cozumel."
"It dawns upon me that, arriving as tourist, I've blundered into a civilization," writes Tony Cohan, a Los Angeles writer who purchased a home in San
Miguel with his Japanese-American wife. His book, "On Mexican Time," is the unofficial bible for the new American resident of Mexico. "How could I
have lived so close by all my life and neglected to realize? Had I been oblivious to the great territories to the south, my own hemisphere?"
This sense of discovery and wonder is fast spilling into the American cultural scene as an "American-Mexican" sensibility becomes "hip."
"Graphic artists, fashion designers and filmmakers have been inspired to shrug off Tijuana's reputation as a cultural void and address the contrary
realities of a place that's neither First World nor Third World; a culture that is neither Mexican nor American," Josh Tyrangiel reported in Time
magazine in June 2001. "The goal, simply, is to transform the strangeness of Tijuana into art."
Thus "Nortec" art, which is being hailed as the first significant art movement in America since 1960s Popism. Its influence can be found in the pages
of hipster magazines from Southern California like Flaunt and Detour. "Tijuana is the first Warholian city of the 21st century," Tyrangiel says.
Many Mexicans are ambivalent about the new invasion. "The last time Mexico experienced anything like this, it was a prelude to war," said Jorge Canto,
a businessman who works with Americans. "Is history repeating itself?" Mexican officials worry that older American immigrants will strain Mexico's
health system. Because of the influx, Medicaid and Medicare have expanded their payment programs in Mexico, and some U.S. HMOs cover members living in
Mexico.
American entrepreneurship in Mexico is making its presence felt. In a study conducted by the Inter-American Development Bank, the amount of
remittances sent to Mexico from the U.S. soared to $14.5 billion, up from $9 billion two years ago. But closer examination reveals that $3.5 billion
of those remittances is money sent by Americans to themselves in Mexico, to purchase homes, finance the opening of businesses, and for living
expenses.
History may indeed be repeating itself. In 1598, Juan de Onate claimed what is now the American Southwest for Spain, and for two centuries, trade
between the areas that are now New Mexico and Arizona came via Mexico City. It was not until 1821, when Mexico declared its independence from Spain,
that the north-south route was redirected. The east-west Santa Fe Trail joined the outpost of New Mexico to the United States by linking Santa Fe to
St. Louis, Mo.
That link predominated until the North American Free Trade Agreement. NAFTA seems to be restoring historic north-south economic and cultural trade
routes. In time, the old east-west corridor may be viewed as a relic associated with America's 19th century nation-building.
Editor's Note: Louis Nevaer is an author and economist. His latest book, "NAFTA's Second Decade," will be released in December.
Skeet/Loreto - 11-17-2003 at 04:30 PM
Suggestion on the first two Posts!!
There are so many Fasle statements in the Posts that both writers should be ashamed of them selves.
It is a waste of my time to list each one first becasue you Hide like the coward you are by not Posting your name.
Shame on you and your pitiful remarks. Skeet/Loreto
Bajabus - 11-17-2003 at 05:13 PM
Skeet get a grip, I don't see any remarks...just 2 articles with the authors bylines. You are not on that oxycotin stuff are you?
Family Guy - 11-17-2003 at 06:52 PM
With the cost of living on the rise in the US and the baby boom generation heading into retirement, I foresee this trend only increasing--for better
or for worse. I like to think for better.
Skeet/Loreto - 11-17-2003 at 07:30 PM
Baja Bus"Why not the truth?
Did you know that in the 60's that there were at leat a million people retired in Mexico. And do you know who most of them were?
Govt and Ex. Govt employes and Milatary
retirees,. He makes it sound as if this just happened
The reason they retired in Mesico was their poor retirement Pay.Skeet
I hate QuotesTell me what you Know
Emerson
FOR WORSE!!
Stephanie Jackter - 11-18-2003 at 12:21 AM
Baja Mexico Land Rush
Anonymous - 1-2-2004 at 10:06 PM
http://www.realtor.org/cipshome.nsf/News/Baja
November 3--Baja, Mexico state officials recorded more than 30 million trips by Americans from the US to Baja last year, according to an October 26
article in the New York Times. These Americans spent well over $1 billion. Are they all just tourists? Not according to the director of a cultural
institution in La Paz, the capital of Baja, who says that real estate is booming and the buyers are from the United States, seeking beachfront
property.
Mexico's constitution prohibits foreigners from directly owing land by the sea, but given Mexico's desire for foreign capital, the government changed
it laws in 1997 to allow foreign ownership through locally administered land trusts. The result has been a boom in migration--mostly from Americans
seeking a more relaxed lifestyle and lower cost of living.
Some locals are not happy with the influx from the north, fearing the quality of life and local culture will decline if the region is overrun by
resort developers who are putting up hundreds of condominiums and hotels. Fonatur, the federal agency that promotes tourism in Mexico and which is
responsible for mega-resorts such as Cancun, is the source of much of this development. Its plan, called Escalera Nautica, or Nautical Ladder, calls
for development on the Baja peninsula involving $210 million in public money, and hopes for $1.7 billion in investment money from developers.
Up until the 1970 and '80s when the government paved a road down through the peninsula, Baja was largely isolated from both mainland Mexico and the
United States. Now, it can be easier and less expensive to travel to Baja from the US, than from Mexico, resulting in the growth of US citizens making
the move south of the border. Americans currently living in the Baja report that their new neighbors from the US are no longer just retirees, but
professionals in the 30s and 40s, putting down roots.
At least 600,000 Americans are permanent residents in Mexico, a number the Mexican government admits is an undercount. That is by far the largest
number of US citizens living in any foreign country.
grey haired
jim janet - 1-3-2004 at 09:48 AM
As a Cannuck who lived on the northern gulf islands i can tell the world that it is happening there as well.The value of the U S dollar over the last
10 years has meant that the waterfront lands have been purchased by mostly U S residents.To my mind this should be stoped in Canada.:
For as patriotic as these people seem to be,
Ski Baja - 1-3-2004 at 10:15 AM
It amazes me that their goal is to move to another country to "share" their way of life and build american enclaves where they feel safe.
Nancy Drew - 1-30-2004 at 06:17 PM
Does that mean if we live in Mexico and get a Mexican drivers license the Mexican government will allow us to vote in their political elections?