I’m in downtown Ensenada. Downtown Ensenada on a Monday night is like Mexican Vegas after the apocalypse. The streets are mostly empty. A few old guys sit on a street bench congratulating each other on their shared wisdom. A cruiser calls to me from his creeping car. “You don’t have anything I want,” I tell him. The bars that are open are sparsely occupied by people looking for something they’re not going to find. Not tonight. Not ever.
Ensenada sits in the nest of Southern California. Under San Diego’s wing. A short hop from El Lay. Ensenada answers the needs of millions of people for whom the American dream naps south of the border.
Millions of people. Millions.
What population is El Paso catering to? Fort Stockton? Clint?
For anywhere else there are greener pastures closer. Closer, and much greener.
And the proof is in the numbers. Residents flee El Paso. City management is out of touch with the citizens, and the citizens are leaving. They’re voting with their feet, because mostly they’ve become disenchanted and disenfranchised by the elections. Representatives don’t represent the people in their districts. They represent their campaign donors.
And so City Government builds more useless features to benefit the developers, and the taxpayers pay higher taxes.
And so it goes, and so do we.
very sad state of affairs. CAD appraises homes higher and higher each year although the majority of homes in the middle of the oreo are worth less by at least 25% but are not worthless. cannot escape because no buyers are coming to the historic areas or central to start a family and buy a gem of a home even at a discount. the amenities are costing us so much we cannot afford the amenities we are funding. protesting the yearly increase in appraised value costs more than the increase anyway…ie..appraisals, estimates for updating, days missed at work to schedule estimates for updating the old cardboard box….and it goes on year after year. last time the fam went to a chihuahua game it was 100 for 4 people to park, sit, eat and have just one ONE beer. screw the dogbowl nachos……
I voted with my feet in 2016, a mere 3 years after I moved to Chuco from my 21 year sentence in Burque. It proved to be a horizontal move, but not for the vast majority of people I knew or met there…that I miss. The problem was doing work as a landscape architect for the unknowing and uncaring, often related to projects under city review and their subjective regulations. But sometimes to others in the private sector; fortunately not all. Hence, I took a county position and moved to Las Cruces.
Excellent blog, by the way. I need to make it a point to read more regularly… Thanks for your honesty, too.