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OH YES THEY DO, Juarenzes shop in El Paso like crazy, dont you ever read how the locals complaint about not finding parking at the malls or at wall mart even look at the international bridges they are always packed and backed up with traffic, how long does it take to get from Juarez to El Paso on a bridge crossing a river thats a spits distance?
about 2 to 4 hours.
Thats not to mention all the Frontera Chihuahua license plates cluttering interstate 10 and every El Paso major street every single bridge except the Stanton Street Bridge since it's a one way bridge going into Juarez but the Santa Fe bridge the Cordova bridge and the Ysleta/Zaragosa bridge are packed and backed up on a daily basis, I dont think that that many El Pasoans travel to Juarez unless they work for the maquiladoras in Juarez or other than shopping or night clubing.
El Paso would really be in Juarez metro statistics, but Juarez depends more on El Paso than the other way around thats why it's attracted people from all over Mexico and grown like crazy.
Comparing cities, El Paso is bigger. Comparing metros, we're more than three times bigger. Whether or not you officially include juarez or not is irrelevant to the people who live and work in the paso del norte region.
Not according to the US census. Juarez does not count in your metro population, never has & never will. How can El Paso be bigger if Albuquerque has more homes & apartments and thats within the city limits not counting the metro area. We can argue this all day, however Albuquerque just has a bigger city feel to it.
No one ever said that Juarez counts in the metropolitian statistics, but you have to be realistic, we have almost two million people living nextdoor in Juarez, we cant pretend that they are not there and we cant see them, we cant only see them we breath the air that knows no borders and El Paso shares it's streets schools hospitals stores you name it with Juarez, they are very much cosmopolitain cities between the two.
Albuquerque without doubt may have all the bigger city feel to it no one can argue that,
but El Paso was already there before Albuquerque leap frog over it, now it is up to El Paso to find it's way out of the stagnant years and get back on the saddle and I think that is precisely what they are doing now.
City to city wise El Paso has way over one hundred thousand more people within the city limits as compare to Albuquerque, Albuquerque or should I say Bernanillo county is surounded by several other New Mexico counties that are rapidly growing making Albuquerque one huge metropolis, and so it looks huge because it has no other New Mexico city of comparable size to compete against.
I think that El Paso is going to surprise even the census predictions of the year 2020.
Well yes it may be true if you include Juarez, but most of the people in Juarez (atleast 95% of them) don't come over to El Paso to add to the economy and buy things. Infact, this works in the reverse. And I'd bet, no more than 10 percent of the Juarez population work in El Paso, so in reality, Juarez really shouldn't be included. Its not in the USA, the majority don't work in El Paso, and most of them hardly ever come over. So if you are going to include Juarez, than it would be the Juarez metro, and not the El Paso metro because Juarez is more than 4 times as big as El Paso, and more people from El Paso cross the border into Mexico than the other way around.
But I'll grant you, population numbers can be misleading.
Are you kidding me? More than 150,000 people cross the border into El Paso on a daily basis. A lot of us know this more than ABQ people do, because we actually live here or have lived here and experience it regularly.
People do call it the Juarez/El Paso Metro area around the world, so what? Juarez has 1.6-2 million people in it, the El Paso Metropolitan area not including Las Cruces metro area that is connected right next to us, or Juarez is over 730,000.. how is that 4 times bigger?
All together, there is over 2.5 million people that live within 80 miles of El Paso's downtown.
I don't think ABQ has a bigger city feel to it at all, I just drove through the town a few months back, coming from Santa Fe, and it felt small IMO. I drove through the actual city limits in like 20-25 minutes through I-25. I like ABQ, but I still don't feel it has a large city feel to it at all. I feel its a small town that is trying to act like a large city.. which isn't bad at all.. but I really don't think of ABQ as a huge city.
The international Ciudad Juárez-El Paso metropolitan area is considered the 48th largest metropolitan area in all of the Americas. The government doesn't count Juarez in our metro, because it doesn't have to, that is not their job to do so.
NOW THATS WHAT I CALL REALISTIC STATS, the WHOLE TRUTH, why fiddle around just accept reality, being ranked 48 largest metro area in the Americas WOW, (top 50 status)
Heres what makes Albuquerque look bigger than El Paso, they have one taller building and another on the way than El Paso, they have a larger airport, but how many years did it take them to realize that Albuquerques Sunport looked primitive, till they finally expanded it, then they built the BIG I, and now they have something to boast about, while El Paso spaghetti bowl ages with years it was there way long before, anyway if you look at El Paso's freeways, they are perfectly planed they have side ramps called things like gateway East and West and South or North, for slower moving traffic or for people that are just plain afraid to drive on the interstate.
NOW THATS WHAT I CALL REALISTIC STATS, the WHOLE TRUTH, why fiddle around just accept reality, being ranked 48 largest metro area in the Americas WOW, (top 50 status)
Thats by including South America in that study too, a whole other continent. If its just North America, then El Paso-Juarez is ranked #31 largest in North America.
OH MY GOD, I was'nt even thinking of two continents, El Paso/Juarez the 31st in North America, "madre de dios" thats a huge gathering of people forming one huge international community on the North American continent not to mention that El Paso and Juarez are the second largest international cities in the world,maybe still first I still contest the San Diego/Tijuana claim for that title since I'm not sure San Diego city limits meets Tijuanas on the border, and also dont include Dona Ana's two hundred thousand plus yet, since Las Cruces is it's own metropolitain area, but gradually as the Southern New Mexico continues to expand and grow in the Sunland Park/Santa Terresa area the commute between these areas and El Paso will increase to over 25% merging them along with Las Cruces into El Paso's metropolitain statistics in about ten to twenty years.
If you go to Wal Mart or the Cielo Vista Mall, 2/3 rds of the cars have a Chihuahua plate. Even the new outlet mall is well represented by Mexico and they spend money. You always see a full cart with the Mexicans shopping over in El Paso.
City to city wise El Paso has way over one hundred thousand more people within the city limits as compare to Albuquerque, Albuquerque or should I say Bernanillo county is surounded by several other New Mexico counties that are rapidly growing making Albuquerque one huge metropolis, and so it looks huge because it has no other New Mexico city of comparable size to compete against.
I think that El Paso is going to surprise even the census predictions of the year 2020.
I think you will see that both cities will surprise the census predictions of the year 2020. However your claim about being the only New Mexico city to compete against is kind of misleading. First, El Paso is far closer to Albuquerque than any other "big city" in texas. And one of El Paso's main suburbs of is in New Mexico. So if anything, El Paso competes with Albuquerque more than it does the likes of Dallas, San Antonio, Austin, Houston, etc. Not to mention none of those cities are even in the same time zone as El Paso. Feel free to disagree.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Chuco
People do call it the Juarez/El Paso Metro area around the world, so what? Juarez has 1.6-2 million people in it, the El Paso Metropolitan area not including Las Cruces metro area that is connected right next to us, or Juarez is over 730,000.. how is that 4 times bigger?
All together, there is over 2.5 million people that live within 80 miles of El Paso's downtown.
Juarez Population: 1.8 Million (Guesstimate)
El Paso Poupulation: 600,000
Sorry, 3X bigger, not 4. Nonetheless, much bigger.
80 miles is a pretty long drive to include them in your population numbers. That would include Santa Fe, Los Alamos, Grants, Soccoro, et al. cities for Albuquerque. The difference would be that they would all be United States citizens that have to pay taxes for their state. A fair number of what you are including for El Paso, don't pay Texas taxes. That doesn't really benifit El Paso all that much.
Quote:
Originally Posted by HIGH!Lonesome
Heres what makes Albuquerque look bigger than El Paso, they have one taller building and another on the way than El Paso, they have a larger airport, but how many years did it take them to realize that Albuquerques Sunport looked primitive, till they finally expanded it, then they built the BIG I, and now they have something to boast about, while El Paso spaghetti bowl ages with years it was there way long before, anyway if you look at El Paso's freeways, they are perfectly planed they have side ramps called things like gateway East and West and South or North, for slower moving traffic or for people that are just plain afraid to drive on the interstate.
actually two to three on the way (arena w/ Westin, journal center, Residences Packard Place). El Paso airport is smaller than ABQ's, and it was even before 1996 when Albuquerque expanded it.
Current Terminal Square footage
ELP: 273,400 square feet
ABQ: 574,000 sq. ft
I am pretty sure in ABQ's expansion in 1996 it wasn't half the current size.
El Paso's freeways don't handle as much national through traffic due to its extreme southern location. I-40 is a much bigger gateway. By that I mean that they don't see quite as many huge trucks--which is more of a good thing than a negative thing.
El Paso is a nice city; but if it is such a "big" city, where is the professional sports team, major shopping stores, etc? Where is the major international conferences, where is all the glamour that such a big city should have?
Quote:
I don't think ABQ has a bigger city feel to it at all, I just drove through the town a few months back, coming from Santa Fe, and it felt small IMO. I drove through the actual city limits in like 20-25 minutes through I-25. I like ABQ, but I still don't feel it has a large city feel to it at all. I feel its a small town that is trying to act like a large city.. which isn't bad at all.. but I really don't think of ABQ as a huge city.
Well if you drive North to south through El Paso it would be a much shorter drive. This is because El Paso runs East to West, not because it is small. To truly appreciate a North to South feel, you would have to get off at Bernallio, take the main drag through Rio Rancho, and get back on I-25 at Alameda. But even this wouldn't really represent the East West feel. In Reality, that is really no way to judge the "big city feel"
I absolutely agree with you that Albuquerque isn't a huge city. Infact, I wouldn't put it in the large city category. I would put it in a sprawling medium sized city category--as well as El Paso. Albuquerque one day be will be a large city. This also applies to El Paso--you guys can say what you want with the whole "49th largest in all the Americas" but El Paso is a medium sized metro, but is on its way to big and large.
Looking at this objectively the two cities are very similar. Albuquerque has more ammentities than El Paso, El Paso has access to the border with 2 million people on the other side. Both have had horrible leadership the last twenty years. To me El Paso is more New Mexican than it will ever be Texan. Both cities are nice in their own right. Albuquerque is more attractive geographically, El Paso has milder winters. Albuquerque has four distinct seasons, El Paso has four milder distinct seasons. I enjoy both very much, and there really shouldn't be a rilvary between the two. Personally I think the rivalry has always been water related (so much water has to flow down the Rio Grande). The two cities can be compared all they want, but the facts remain. According to the United States government, Albuquerque's metro is larger. According to Practicality, Juarez's metro (including El Paso) is huge--but without huge city ammentities. Albuquerque has more of a big city feel than El Paso, but Albuquerque lacks a fair share of ammentities. The two cities are more similar than they are different, and being only 3 1/2 hours apart, this should be expected.
Last edited by abqsunport; 11-22-2007 at 12:50 AM..
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