No, not emergency contraception. We missed that boat years ago.
It’s time to stop pretending like those Quality of Life projects are going to spur economic development. They’re not. They never were.
If our tax base were growing, we might be able to wait till we grew into those projects, like our big brother’s clothes. But El Paso’s tax base has been shrinking since 2012.
The City won’t admit it. The local media won’t ask about it. Because it’s unpatriotic. Our city “leaders” can’t let on, because they’re afraid it’ll scare prospective businesses away.
So we talk about downtown development, and we keep throwing money at it, and we get more hotels and bars and now an office tower, but no real economic growth. Those projects are just cannibalizing business from other parts of town.
The only investment we get are gullible investors who think they can build million dollar condos, or rent downtown apartments for $2,500 a month.
Lemme tell you. No responsible businessmen are considering a move to El Paso. Hell, even the call centers are leaving.
All we’re getting are hotels and restaurants and public works projects. New hotels and restaurants are just divvying up the existing pie, and those public works projects aren’t going to last forever. It might be another twenty years till the federal government drops another million bucks on El Paso, and we have plenty of highway infrastructure for a community who’s population is dwindling, so we can’t count on TxDOT to keep the fire going.
The definition of insanity is City Council. Also, doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
The proof is in the pudding, and our pudding tastes like gruel.
wL
I moved here about 35 years ago from Chicago. I had a business that required me to outdoors most of the time. Winters last forever in Chicago and the temperature frequently goes to 10 below zero or worse. Not to mention the snow. I had some friends that lived here and they were from Boston. People from Boston know a thing or two about fucked up. The said come to El Paso. It’s so easy. And I came. And it was easy. Why are we so intent on fucking up an easy deal? If the Borderplex Alliance has certain aspirations for this area that don’t necessarily jive with the culture then they should move to Chicago. I’ll call my sister. I think she has a spare couch.
LOL, there’s a sucker born…….The suckers are the voters/nonvoters of El Paso. Despite all this bullshite to destroy El Paso, you vote for the same idiots repeatedly or don’t vote.
Do these idiots really believe people will flock to El Paso by building more empty house and low level of occupancy in office buildings? Low wages and high taxes, piss poor school systems riddled with pedophiles, mass corruption. A one political party system that simply rotates the chairs. An area that concentrates on freebies for Juarez citizens at the expense of El Paso residents. Look around any building with less than 30% occupancy is a failure. Leaving the lights on doesn’t fool people. This ain’t N Korea. More tax breaks for builders to keep them afloat.
How stupid can someone be to believe that someone for pay 2 million for a condo and that’s the cheap ones? Two buildings 15 stories high and it’s going to get full occupancy? LOL. Name the place NARCO Gardens. They need a safe place to live.
I hope you are wrong. I fear you are not.
Fiscal responsibility is hard to find in politics. It is easier to kick it down the road to the next elected party to deal with and build wonderful Disney like monuments today.
The Disney princess did get married. The story did not go on to state they got divorced 5 years later and now split the kids and the debt they incurred.
Well said.
Hard currency staying local was the way El Paso thrived, after the railroads helped create it. Now, both are gone.
Right on tBusch! I moved to the Borderland from Boston in 1996. First to Mesilla, New Mexico which is now gentrified beyond affordability for the original Mesilleros, whose family roots extend back to when Mesilla was part of Mexico. Sadly, the majority of Mesilleros did not make an ongoing stand, like the courageous residents and defenders of the Segundo Barrio and Duranguito have been doing for over a decade.
I moved to El Paso because I have great respect for the positive energy of El Paso residents defending their Mexican Culture which I enjoy being around. The residents and defenders of El Paso’s Mexican neighborhoods are people of great Integrity who are making an uncompromising stand for the survival of their cultural heritage and the human scale of their way of life. As we know, Iiving on a human scale has become impossible in most of the US. Living within walking distance of El Paso’s original neighborhoods like the Segundo Barrio, Chihuahuita and Duranguito, is experiencing the tranquility of being surrounded by people who have maintained their human warmth and community values.
I just returned from a visit to Boston, after many years away, which has strengthened my resolve to continue speaking up about my concern for the threatened erasure of El Paso’s Mexican Cultural Heritage. Witnessing the increasingly frantic dehumanization of the Urban East Coast lifestyle, I shudder at the thought that the generic values of Gringolandia is on the verge of destroying Downtown El Paso’s original historical neighborhoods….threatening destruction of Downtown El Paso’s unique quality of life, enriched by it’s proud Mexican Cultural Heritage.
By the way, I am an East Coast Anglo woman and consider Senator Rodriguez a leader of great integrity and definitely NOT a racist for using the word Gringolandia. Though I value the positive traits of my Anglo culture, the arrogant values of Grigolandia, imposed on already thriving cultures on a global level, is the worst expression of my Anglo culture.
Having lived in Mexico and Central America between 2008 and 2016, I have seen first hand the devastation of Gringolandia imposed on once culturally rich communities, further increasing poverty and inequality. Gringolandia=Racism.
Senator Rodriguez was correct in using the word Gringolandia in relation to the attempted erasure of El Paso’s Mexican Culture to enrich the affluent members of Paso Del Norte and the Borderplex Alliance. Duranguito, as many of us know, is the continuation of a more than a decade attempt to erase the Mexican Culture on a regional level which includes Mesilla and Las Cruces, New Mexico.