April 23, 2008
I read the article written by David Crowder in Newspaper Tree over the weekend about a presentation put on by some folks who studied El Paso's "problems" and came up with a Powerpoint presentation of "solutions." [npt article]
The focus of the Paso Del Norte Group's (PDNG) presentation is not narrow. It seems as if it was a culmination of research based on many factors including educational opportunities, educational attainment, job opportunities, job pay, job availability, regional position for both business and education and a tiny look at the political climate as well as many other tangible qualifiers (buzz phrase!) associated with "successful cities."
I take from the report on the presentation that they are telling El Paso that it needs better paying jobs and better educated people to achieve some tangible qualification (buzz phrase!) as a "great city." In my opinion I find it offensive that some a***** from Boulder, Colorado was paid big bucks to tell me why my city sucks. Maybe if the PDNG wants to better El Paso they could throw some dough at a local a***** to tell us how bad our city sucks. I'm not claiming to be smart like Albert Goldstein or anything, but buying local might be the first step in bettering El Paso. We keep thinking the really smart answers about ourselves live in the minds of people from other places. Do you think New York City would ask Chicago about how to better their city? Would Boulder ask us?
Here's an interesting part of the presentation theme as reported by David Crowder:
"And what El Paso really needs but never has had, the report states, is a strategic plan for the city's future developed and agreed on by local government officials, the business sector and leaders in education."
Sounds great! But let's be honest -- it's a pipe dream.
First off, the government officials don't get along with the business sector guys because the politicians rely on class warfare to get elected in El Paso. The elected officials who manage not to pit the "have nots" against the "haves" to get elected seem to be way too close to certain people in the business sector and tend to screw everyone in the process. The only thing the government officials and the business sector can agree on is that they like little or nothing about each other. The two entities remain highly suspect of each other.
Our leaders in education consist of the local presidents of the colleges, superintendents of the various ISDs and the teacher's union. They all have their own problems that keep them from focusing on big picture issues like El Paso's yuppie-like future.
The presidents of the various colleges are fighting the never ending battle of trying to provide a top rate education at bottom dollar prices. Dr. Natalicio gets unfairly beaten over the head by local politicians because on the one hand they want UTEP to be Harvard and on the other they want UTEP to be practically free. Reality says that the top universities are what they are because they charge a lot of money for their services. Last time I checked, Yale was expensive for a reason. This is yet another example of the local politicos going out of their way to create support for themselves by bashing another one of the key groups mentioned above. Do you really expect UTEP and the Community College to sit at the table with the bullies who push them down and take their lunch money every day?
The superintendents are too busy trying to pad their resume with bond issues success and real estate acquisitions to care about the long term successes of El Paso's children. When superintendents stop in El Paso it's only for a short time. They have no extended investment in this community. Short-timers have no real reason to care if the youth of El Paso can support them when they get old because they won't be here. I've said it once and I'll say it again -- El Paso is the bench at the halfway point on a jogging trail. Everybody stops to rest their sweaty keester on us for minute and before long they get back on the path and head to their ultimate destination.
I really don't see their idea of everybody working hand-in-hand as an achievable reality for the near future. We're going to have to find another way around that fence.
The article goes on to give some cookie cutter solutions that resemble the same old song and dance of having access to capital and more higher education opportunities etc. We've heard it all a million times -- smarter, richer people make better communities. I'll get right on that since it sounds oh so simple. I mean all we have to do is start handing out money to whomever wants it and things will be great, right? Oops, forgot about that whole lending crisis we're battling right this minute.
Besides the obvious problems with their first suggestion, I was bothered by a catch phrase that Crowder quoted them as using in their presentation:
"Concentrate on developing El Paso as a 'premier location for globally mobile location' by offering amenities, good schools, access to international business and legal services, arts and culture, access to university-based professional development and post-graduate education."
Did that guy from Boulder really get paid to come with "premier location for globally mobile location." At that point any person with half a brain would say, "okay, these guys are messing with me. That is the dumbest, most contrived phrase I've ever heard and I'm offended these jerks would pull something like this." Why weren't these guys shown the door at that point? That's just embarrassing.
I could take apart their presentation for hours, but that wouldn't help us at all. What I really want to do is get a definition, or an overview, of what these people want El Paso to be like. Why are we not satisfied with what El Paso is now and what would El Paso look and feel like when and if these goals are achieved? I'm really curious as to what PDNG's idea of how El Paso should be is.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that they'd like to make us more like some place else. A little more yuppie. A little more palatable for the upper class folks. More Starbucks and at least a few Pottery Barns to start with. Maybe they'll throw in some conservative but chic clothing stores staffed by overly-made up women who hate you for being alive and being within a mile of them. Take a trip to Scottsdale and see what I mean.
Show me another one of these cities that we're so in love with that is 80 percent Hispanic and a stone's throw from a separate country in turmoil. When you live here, you live with all that encompasses a very complicated region. Thinking you can change the reality that is this border town is like a girl thinking she's going to change her man -- not going to happen.
The other recurring theme in both this study and just about everywhere else in El Paso is this "problem" of the "brain drain." I'm hoping I can get you to rethink your initial impression of this phenomenon.
I expect people to leave this place in droves. I also expect many to come back. I did. What do you think is going to happen when you educate our youth better than we have done in the past? They're going to be curious about the outside world and they are going to leave to see that world.
I'm not sure paying people a bunch of money will do much to change what El Paso is. If you want to turn us into a yuppie paradise you're going to have run Chico's Tacos out of town along with every other dive we've come to know and love. Outsiders don't get it, don't like it and would rather eat at a place that looks like a Macaroni Grill. Our eating habits and establishments aren't becoming of the "see and be seen" crowd that the yupsters want this town to turn into. Sadly, that's just the beginning.
Are we willing to sell our culture down the river because our kids go get jobs in Dallas and we want them to stay? Are you willing to turn this place into Dallas West just so you can say you are from a hip city and maybe in the meantime retain our young? Is El Paso's identity worth less than our need to be cool and accepted by others?
You can find this struggle between our love of our culture and our need to be a hip city right there in the pages of Newspaper Tree. In one column they have someone lamenting the coolness of downtown as it is and in the next there's a call for an overhaul of downtown to better suit a new class of El Pasoans. Which direction are we going to go?
Luckily we're big enough to do something other large cities with identity problems did. They created sections of the city aimed at pleasing just about everyone. El Paso can do the same. We don't have to change the entire city to please a small few.
Downtown up to Kern Place is turning out to be our little yuppie mile. For those who need a taste of Austin or Santa Fe they can hang around there and get their fix. Granted its not completely yuppified, but it's getting there slowly but surely.
Isn't that what we're talking about here anyway? Making life El Paso a little more likable for the rich folks. All El Pasoans want a good education and a good job, but it always seems that these studies and "come to Jesus" meetings are held by the power elite. The ironic thing is that the power elite are making too much money to leave and the rest of us are making too little to stay. I'll be damned if that's how it always works out here in El Paso.
I think we keep trudging along letting things work themselves out. If we get in a big hurry to start building a strategic plan we're just going to end up fighting over it like we did the downtown plan.
We're moving in the right direction. Our population is increasing each year. Our enrollment in college is up. We're aware of the problems we need to fix like the drop out rate in our high schools. These things don't get fixed over night and sometimes not even in a decade, but they work themselves out.
Will we end up being Dallas West? I doubt it, but there's a small chance we could ruin this paradise trying to be somebody else. Progressive yuppies will build their parts of their town and will be satisfied. Eventually they'll give up trying to make the rest of us wear khakis and drive "beamers" and retire to their area of town They'll be happy in their little niche and you'll be happy in yours. And together we'll make up what will always be home, El Paso.
DavidK has a blog at http://refusethejuice.typepad.com/