Not too long ago, the local machine said we should be like Oklahoma City, developing downtown through sports infrastructure.
Now the yahoos on El Feis are saying El Paso should be like San Diego.
Well, lookie here.
According to Wikipedia, the San Diego Metropolitan Statistical area has 3,926,941 people who make, on average $22,926 a year. That multiplies out to $90,029,049,366.
Ninety billion dollars. A year.
The El Paso MSA, by contrast, has 679,622 people who make $13,421. Las Cruces has 174,682 people making $13,999 each. That means El Paso’s collective buying power is $9,121,206,862, and Las Cruces is $2,445,373,318, for a combined $11,566,580,180.
That’s a $78 billion dollar difference between El Paso/Las Cruces and San Diego each year.
It’s nice to dream, but every once in a while you have to come up for air.