The purpose of this paper is to describe an economic region straddling the Canada‐USA border between Ontario and Michigan from historical and contemporary perspectives. It aims to highlight policy challenges for federal, state, provincial and municipal governments.
This paper provides a general review based on academic literature, government and consultant reports and data from a variety of sources. It begins with a historical review of the study regions. This is followed by a more detailed contemporary review of conditions arising since the attacks of September 11, 2001. A number of possible and ongoing policy options for various orders of government are then described.
The paper finds that Ontario and Michigan comprise a highly integrated economic region with a particular focus on automotive production. Within that region the Canada‐USA border is a key transportation bottleneck whose impedance effect has gotten worse in the aftermath of September 11, 2001. A variety of policies have been implemented to try to reduce the cost of the border with mixed success and there is little cross‐border interaction among lower orders of government.
To the best of the author's knowledge there has been no other paper published in an academic journal that describes the history, current situation and policy issues of the study region. The value of this paper lies in providing a multidisciplinary overview and a starting point for further research on the region.
