This post originally appeared on 01 October 2015. Some things have changed since then. Our Commercial property tax rate is
Category: Economic Development
It’s Class War
Here’s District 3 Representative Cassandra Hernandez Brown, talking about City Council’s economic development initiatives to the Texas Standard: “You develop
Murmurs: El Paso Public Library = Chicano Memorial Museum
The word in the smoke-filled back rooms of the the back alleys of the side streets of the halls of
The Death of the American City
This story from Harper’s is about New York, but it’s the formula our city fathers are emulating. New York has
“Some Cities Are Screwed”
An alert reader sent me this relevant article from Salon: [A]s the adage goes, all economics is local. One part
Sign the Lost Dog Petition
The City thinks the way to make El Paso attractive is to tart her up like a hooker in a
Joel Is Right
There are lots of places where people can live and El Paso is one of them. Unfortunately for the El
I Can Admit It When I Make a Mistake
The City can’t. Which is probably why they can’t stop making mistakes. If you’re going to pretend your mistake never
Looking Back to the Future
I’ve been chasing someone else’s disposable income my whole life. Before slinging drinks on the front lines of the service
What If Their Plan Doesn’t Work?
What if they’re doing it wrong? What if their plans for economic development are based on false assumptions? What if
Is El Paso Dying?
I went by the liquor mega-store this week and there were four cars in the parking lot. Inside there were
The El Paso Housing Bubble
The Central Appraisal District tells us that house values are up 7.6 percent this year. While the U.S. Census Bureau
Retrovision: A Failure in Branding
This article originally appeared on 24 August 2017. Here’s a letter to the editor from the El Paso Times: Here
If You Build It, Will They Come?
This, from KTSM: City Council approved a controversial proposal Tuesday to create a special taxing zone to spur development along
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
The First Rule of Operational Security
. . . is that you don’t talk about Operational Security. I bet that they’ve revoked Major Morgan’s security clearance
El Paso Grows By Four Tenths of One Percent
According to estimates just released by the U.S. Census Bureau, the population of the City of El Paso grew by
The Bubble
We all live in our own bubbles. We hang out with people who think like us and dress like us
Retrovision: More On Dwntwn
This article originally appeared on November 11, 2013. By now you may have read this story by David Crowder about
Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About TIRZs*
*That the City doesn’t want you to know. What is a Tax Increment Refinancing Zone, anyway? Here’s testimony given to