Liquid City

CHAPTER FIVE

IMMIGRATION

In 2005 Hugo Salinas announced his intention to run for mayor in the Salvadoran town of Intipuca. He did not make the announcement in El Salvador but in a hotel in downtown Washington, D.C. Streams of migration and remittances link the small town and the U.S. capital. More than 40 percent of the residents of the Salvadoran town now live in the Washington area, and they send money back to Intipuca and invest in its economy. Salinas, who lives in Arlington, Virginia, lost the election, held in March 2006, by fewer than 100 votes.

At the time that Gottmann was writing Megalopolis, the national percentage of the foreign born was around 6 percent, and immigration to the United States was limited. This era ended in the mid-1960s, ...