More Businesses But Not More Business

Here’s a graphic I lifted from the City’s website, detailing what kind of businesses the City is expecting to move into the Northeast Water Park TIRZ:

If I were a small businessman out in Northeast El Paso, I’d be wondering where all the customers for those new businesses are going to come from. If, for instance, I owned Mo’z Bar-B-Que, I’d wonder how all those new restaurants were going to affect my business, because people can only eat so much.

Maybe the City shouldn’t be giving tax incentives to new businesses that are only going to cannibalize the businesses that are already out there. Maybe the City shouldn’t be picking winners and losers in a system that pretends to be free market capitalism.

But you can’t move forward by having backward thinking, I’m told. You can, however, move backward by having forward thinking.

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