(Bloomberg) - Jordi Muñoz lives in CaliBaja, a binational metropolis that San Diego and Tijuana want to put on the map.

A Mexican native with permanent resident status in the U.S., the 28-year-old is the co-founder of North America's largest drone manufacturer, 3D Robotics Inc. Its aerial vehicles are designed in a San Diego office building and get their wings in a Tijuana manufacturing facility where Muñoz's childhood friend, Guillermo Romero, supervises a mexican workforce of 115. Engineers from both countries shuttle between the two locations."

Being on the border has allowed us to fabricate everything in-house," Munoz said. "Workers in Tijuana have a California mentality, they don't see limits -- it's a really nice combination."

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TIJUANA — Issues such as tourism, emergency response, the environment, police collaboration, and joint trade missions were the topics of discussion on Friday, as Mayor Kevin Faulconer brought top staff members from San Diego City Hall to meet with Tijuana Mayor Jorge Astiazaran and his staff.

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The border economy may have grown up with the maquiladora industry's traditional focus on low cost assembly, but rapid growth in East Asia and elsewhere has pulled many low skilled jobs out of the region. Though this caused some pain as it happened during the early 2000s, it has forced border region manufacturers to focus on their long-term comparative advantage—proximity to the vast U.S. market—and to move up the value chain into more advanced manufacturing. In this context, companies will invest in the region not because of the supply of cheap labor but because of the availability of adequate talent, putting a premium on education.

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The first sections of a pedestrian skybridge linking Tijuana's A.L. Rodríguez International Airport and San Diego have been lifted into place in Mexico.

The pair of 150-foot-long pieces, weighing a combined 150 tons, took two days to install above the Vía de la Juventud Oriente, which runs along the international border fence.

Cars were diverted as the operation took place on Saturday and Sunday. The remaining portions of the bridge, on the U.S. side of the border, are scheduled to be put into place within the next few weeks.

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