El Paso Needs the Rebirth of Cool

El Paso Needs Cool - this "cool" is overrated. The writer states that we don't have the businesses coming here, but then this person hasn't really paid any attention to the warehouses growing or the hotels going up.

The sort of "cool" that the writer states El Paso needs would be damaging as it would attract the not so cool crowd - gangs and drugs. We are a borderland town afterall, and the problems in Juarez are mounting.

The sort of "cool" would be costly as it would find far too many underage people (18-21) in the "cool" atmosphere, finding access to liqour and drugs - the police would have to be out in force to enforce the laws and keep underage drinkers, gang members, drugs and guns out of the "cool" atmosphere.

I have a strong suspicion that the individual who wrote the article complaining that there's nothing to do in El Paso hasn't looked around very much and therefore, doesn't see the educational facilities available nor the various entertainment opportunities. Even the Juarez youth come over here to enjoy the "fun" on Cincinatti Street and other events along the way.

Sorry, but that article to me sounds like an underage citizen complaining because they can't go where there's alcohol. And that's the state of it. Complain all you want, it won't get you anywhere. And there's plenty to do, just hang in there, you'll grow to be old enough to do all the "cool" things that others get to do because they are old enough. -- LyndaLBD

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The statement was made that : "And not-cool is the attitude and perception a lot of young people have about El Paso."

Well this is the normal attitude of people who have never lived anywhere else. Native born El Pasoans don't know how good they have it. So much is so close that people here fail to see the paradise that they have.

BTW If a survey was done in 100 cities of the young people it would look like 1 original and 99 copies. -- LisaT

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LyndaLBD, I think you're reading your own prejudices into my article. The exodus of El Paso's young is a fact. El Paso's median age is less than the rest of Texas, and yet our percentage of the 20-34 demographic is also less. These two statistics together show that when people graduate high school, they leave El Paso.

The 18 to 35 year old demographic is sought by marketers because people in that cohort spend more of their income, and thereby constitute a viable market. Why would you deprive El Paso merchants of that purchasing power?

Warehouses and hotels aren't exactly my idea of a vibrant economy.

And they don't generate a lot of high paying jobs.

And I'm surprised you equate cool with liquor and drugs. But perhaps this is the kind of attitude that led to our current state.

Unfortunately, gang members are role models for lots of our young people in their unquenchable pursuit of cool. Kids are looking for cool, and they're going to find it in one place or another. Without a proactive approach, we've vacated the field, leaving a cool vacuum for whomever wants to claim it.

I look forward to the day when I'll be old enough to all the cool things that others get to do because they're old enough. I'm already eligible for AARP. What's next?

Maybe I better go chase those teenagers off my lawn. -- Rich Wright

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I am for cool, even if I never quite made it to cool myself, which may explain why I ended up here and all my 40-something contemporaries left town. And Wildhare's was cool, RIP. But coming from a family of doctors, I feel somewhat qualified to say med students do not equal cool. They do make good tenants, and shoppers, and targets for future spouses. But not cool. Finally, with all due respect to Sito, you remain the coolest author on this site. -- Bob

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Utep is talking about building dorms to increase the number of out of state students (ala the thousands of kids at UTAustin (or NMSU). This should bring more students with money to spend here; and equally important, more girls and boys for our local boys and girls to entice them to stay put (i.e., marry them before they leave). 10,000 to 15,000 (maybe one day, up to 50,000 out of state (El Paso) students will be what we need to attract new high tech business.

Unfortunately, we do not seem to impress high tech high paying businesses with our local college graduated talent (given the remedial nature of UTEP's academic program) but a combination of out of towners and local students would be one factor(depth) to attract businesses.

Of course, if we stop this incestuous business development mentally (ala spending $30,000,000 on the Plaza Theatre) on the idea that if we build it they will come; this strategy always results in the same result (i.e., call insanity) that these project come to rely on the local people spending local money to sustain this projects.

We need to bring new outside money into El Paso not create more venues to spend out own money.

This gets me to the conventional center. If we spend the $250,000,000 we spend on parks on build the largest convention center in the world, we could have used the Plaza's $30,000,000 to bribe hundreds of convention planners to bring their conventions to El Paso (of course, we invite them to visit Juarez, the more attractive sister).

Of course, Instead of $260 million on parks, we could have built a theme park that would make El Paso a place of destination rather than a stayover spot on the way to LA or San Antonio.

I like what Bransen MO did for itself, it created a mountain out of "has beens" moles; perhaps we have the geography and chance to attract the talent to make El Paso the Branson of the Pass.

PS: in most major cities, there is no waiting for a consensus of "stakeholders"; the movers move and doubters get left behind. Movers got the Plaza $30,000,000 without a consenses. $250,000,000 for parks was passed without a majority of voters voting. So consensus is a myth; unless you really do not want to develop downtown, then you can demand consensus and kill the project. -- David Morales

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This article hit very near to a good point. I thought I’d express my somewhat young & naïve opinion, if I may.

Like Mr. Wright stated, there are many cities, such as Austin, that hold many qualities EP does not. For myself, in my mid-twenties & returning from military service, it is possible and probable that I will move there. Why. There are many good schools to choose from for continuing my education, (no offense to UTEP). The cost of living may be higher, but there is more money there, and many more jobs. More entertainment. The crime rate might be higher, but so what; within tolerance.

So here’s my opinion of a simple fix. Much simpler to say, I know, but not to do, maybe: More schools. By schools I mean colleges, not trade schools or institutes. El Paso needs a more educated workforce, educate the youth of El Paso in El Paso. Educate them well and more will come. El Paso needs more of this demographic without the crime that comes with it. Well, generally speaking, it is my understanding that most college students tend not to be in “gangs” or any other serious trouble. They’re usually too busy studying, working, or partying. Also where there are more colleges, there are more college students in the ages of 18 to 20+, and where are more students, there’s more business, just as Mr. Wright touch on.

The new medical school mentioned in the article is brilliant & with good purpose. But it should be seen more of a good start than a problem solved.

After all, what is “cooler” than a college student, right?

A note on LisaT, I have lived in many a place considering my age. This article holds water. And Mr. Wright, you nailed it saying, “Warehouses and hotels aren't exactly my idea of a vibrant economy. And they don't generate a lot of high paying jobs.”

Well said.
-- CJG

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I am in the planning of stages of leaving El Paso for the third and perhaps final time. While I am not in the 18-35 demographic, I still fit there mentally. El Paso is a great place that has always failed to market itself as such. People who love this town must take, must take others by the hand to show them what this town and the surrounding areas have to offer or they may never find out. El Paso is and has always been "clickish," I don't care how old you are and those clicks come back to haunt you, especially on the west side.
We are a classic rock and heavy metal town with terrible tired radio stations. Our city continues to raise property taxes year after year without raising its quality of life. We continue to rank below the national average for cost of living, but the price placed on boredom is just too expensive. I will miss the people and the food. -- W Clay Fiske III

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It is beyond my reasoning, I am sorry to say, to understand why anyone would want to relocate to El Paso. Often times I even wonder about why people stay there. The most oft used reason is.....'it's home'. Well, guess what.....there is a whole wide world outside El Paso. I left 'home' 30 years ago, and wouldn't move back there for love or money. It's time to let go and grow up, if you are stuck here by using the excuse that it is 'home'. Humbug!

That outside world is one that can support the arts, music that is not from the 70's (check the ticket sales for Pink Martini...you can ALMOST still get front row seats), upscale or unique shoppes, non-mainstream cinema, even a 'real' health food store....and don't tell me that Sun Harvest covers that 'niche'. It does not.

Few places offer so little to do, and so few places to do it.

Certainly there are tiny islands of 'culture', lots of nice people blah blah blah, but all in all, El Paso will remain what it always is, a border town where murder is one of the main hobbies for those living just across the river. Those that want to, and are financially able to make major change (Zaragoza, Verde Group, others of the ilk) are just around to wring whatever dollars they can out of the place.

And of course, the level of local corruption is something that is very appealing to anyone wanting to come here, as is the maquila industry.

Come on, folks-- get over it. El Paso will never be anything other than what it is now. A hot dusty nothing guarding a dead river overshadowed by some of the foulest air in the nation. -- Tector Gorch

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Physicians stay in the area where they trained as Resident or Fellows. Where they go to medical School has no bearing on where they settle. Unless we add more training positions or raise the retention rate that now hovers at about 30 %, there will be no increase in El Paso phsicians.
Also, since we are adding the first 2 years of medical school which are the basic sciences, the type of Doctors who will come to town will be MD/PHd's of PHd's who teach and are research orientated. This will not increase in anyway the number of El Paso physicians.
-- Chas

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Do you just have to be up to the age of 35 to be cool? -- E.C.

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If you want to increase the graduation rate in our high schools, EPCC and UTEP, we would set up an "export brain" office to help our kids find good jobs in larger cities; we should reward their graduation with a airline ticket to any larger city in the U.S.. This would give them hope that they will not wind up an overeducated call center customer representative; they would get a chance to see how the other world does it (doesn't); earned some good money and perhaps one day return with more worldly ideas (and tolerant of medicrocity); perhaps that is what El Paso needs. We should care about our kids getting a better deal; it is sadistic to want them to stay on the plantation. -- David Morales

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This was great. Cool is far more appealing than hot, which is what El Paso markets. -- Arlene

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