medical care, humidity, cost, el paso vs. las cruces (Dallas: transplants, lawyer)

[EnjoyEP]

Originally Posted by leavingsoon

I find it strange that you find the population of ALB daunting yet you are interested in El Paso, which is larger.

Believe it or not, according to the last census (2006), the MSA (metro area) of Albuquerque clocked in at 816,000...El Paso clocked in metro-area at ~765,000. Fairly insignificant of a difference, but figuring total metro area, Albuquerque is actually slightly larger. Yes, in terms of the actual city limits, El Paso is a bit bigger still.

Overall, even with ABQ's metro a bit bigger now than EP's, overall I would say it is somewhat of a wash between the two.

[holmes]

Originally Posted by EnjoyEP

Believe it or not, according to the last census (2006), the MSA (metro area) of Albuquerque clocked in at 816,000...El Paso clocked in metro-area at ~765,000. Fairly insignificant of a difference, but figuring total metro area, Albuquerque is actually slightly larger. Yes, in terms of the actual city limits, El Paso is a bit bigger still.

Overall, even with ABQ's metro a bit bigger now than EP's, overall I would say it is somewhat of a wash between the two.

I know people will argue against it, but if you talk about the metro area of El Paso, you're really talking about the El Paso/Juarez metro. At more than 2.5 million this is more than 3 times as large as Albq metro. By 2020, it will be projected to be at 3.5 million..

[EnjoyEP]

Originally Posted by holmes

I know people will argue against it, but if you talk about the metro area of El Paso, you're really talking about the El Paso/Juarez metro. At more than 2.5 million this is more than 3 times as large as Albq metro. By 2020, it will be projected to be at 3.5 million..

Sure, cannot disagree with that. If you include Ciudad Juarez, then obviously there is no comparison.

However, by 2020, the city of Albuquerque will also be larger than the city of El Paso.

But yes, if you throw Juarez into any metro thought with El Paso, then the mammoth city of Juarez makes the region far bigger than ABQ metro.

[observe]

Originally Posted by EnjoyEP

Believe it or not, according to the last census (2006), the MSA (metro area) of Albuquerque clocked in at 816,000...El Paso clocked in metro-area at ~765,000. Fairly insignificant of a difference, but figuring total metro area, Albuquerque is actually slightly larger. Yes, in terms of the actual city limits, El Paso is a bit bigger still.

Overall, even with ABQ's metro a bit bigger now than EP's, overall I would say it is somewhat of a wash between the two.

Actually El Paso's metro is 736,310 as of July 2006. The difference is in the amount of businesses, restaurants hotel/motels, and the air traffic at the airport along with the job market. Those are some of the areas where you can really see the difference in the two metro area's.

[Chuco]

Actually, I got this information from an article a while back, I can't find it right now for some reason, but I wrote down the information...
The surrounding El Paso area has more than 900,000 people in it on any given day,
El Paso Metro (El Paso County): 736,310
New Mexico Towns immediately surrounding El Paso (Anthony, Santa Teresa, Chaparral, Vado, Chamberino): 36,250
Average number of people legally crossing the border daily from Juarez to El Paso: 150,000
Grand Total: 922,560

Albuquerque has 4 counties that help out its metro area, so that is the reason why they have a larger metro.

The towns that are located in New Mexico but border El Paso are counted towards the Las Cruces metro area, even though they are connected to El Paso and live off El Paso.
If you add in the Las Cruces area which is 35 miles from El Paso's border then we easily get over 1 million on the U.S. side.

According to the El Paso city website, El Paso/Juarez currently has a pop. of 2,319,058, in 2020 El Paso/Juarez will have 3,479,147. This does not include any towns from Dona Ana County that are connected to El Paso.

[observe]

Originally Posted by Chuco

Actually, I got this information from an article a while back, I can't find it right now for some reason, but I wrote down the information...
The surrounding El Paso area has more than 900,000 people in it on any given day,
El Paso Metro (El Paso County): 736,310
New Mexico Towns immediately surrounding El Paso (Anthony, Santa Teresa, Chaparral, Vado, Chamberino): 36,250
Average number of people legally crossing the border daily from Juarez to El Paso: 150,000
Grand Total: 922,560

Albuquerque has 4 counties that help out its metro area, so that is the reason why they have a larger metro.

The towns that are located in New Mexico but border El Paso are counted towards the Las Cruces metro area, even though they are connected to El Paso and live off El Paso.
If you add in the Las Cruces area which is 35 miles from El Paso's border then we easily get over 1 million on the U.S. side.

According to the El Paso city website, El Paso/Juarez currently has a pop. of 2,319,058, in 2020 El Paso/Juarez will have 3,479,147. This does not include any towns from Dona Ana County that are connected to El Paso.

The 4 counties that are included have communities that are actually attached to Albuquerque, Rio Rancho, South Valley, Carnuel, Tijeras, Bernalillo, Placitas, Corrales, Bosque Farms, Los Lunas, Belen. If you add Santa Fe's metro (which is the same distance from ABQ as EP is from LC) its over 1 million. If you go off of estimates of people in the Metro area at any given time it probably hovers around 1 million.
However I think that is ridiculous, it's like including Juarez in your Metro which the federal government does not recognize when it comes to federal monies and other things considered with population.
Other things go into consideration like the number of houses and apartments which Albuquerque has more of than El Paso, also the Airport traffic (passengers boarding and un boarding) Albuquerque's International Sunport handles over 6.5 million passengers a year where as El Paso's International Airport just over 3 million a year. The television market also factors into the equation ABQ #46 ELP #99, it's things like this where the difference in size shows itself.

[holmes]

Originally Posted by observe

The 4 counties that are included have communities that are actually attached to Albuquerque, Rio Rancho, South Valley, Carnuel, Tijeras, Bernalillo, Placitas, Corrales, Bosque Farms, Los Lunas, Belen. If you add Santa Fe's metro (which is the same distance from ABQ as EP is from LC) its over 1 million. If you go off of estimates of people in the Metro area at any given time it probably hovers around 1 million.
However I think that is ridiculous, it's like including Juarez in your Metro which the federal government does not recognize when it comes to federal monies and other things considered with population.
Other things go into consideration like the number of houses and apartments which Albuquerque has more of than El Paso, also the Airport traffic (passengers boarding and un boarding) Albuquerque's International Sunport handles over 6.5 million passengers a year where as El Paso's International Airport just over 3 million a year. The television market also factors into the equation ABQ #46 ELP #99, it's things like this where the difference in size shows itself.

Various factors play into why El Paso has always been shammed as far as getting respect and the federal/state monies it deserves. This is just a product of the geographical location of the city. It literally is at the junction of two states and two nations. This in itself is a barrier to it getting fully recognized (monetarily) by the state of texas. Admittedly, a fairly insignificant amount of the metro population lies just outside on the NM side. But for all intents and purposes is in the metro. A very significant portion of the metro population lies directly adjacent to its south in a different country. But again, for all intents and purposes is in the metro as well. These three communities act as one cohesive whole regardless of the formal differences that separate them. The sooner people across all three governments understand that this kind of thinking is exactly what has held local government back the better. This area has the potential to really take its place as a major urban region in north america. It's issues are really so unique, these three governmental entities need to work together to push the entire region forward. I like to think of El Paso and Juarez kind of like East & West Berlin. Two halves of the same city divided by political differences. Fortunately our political differences aren't as hostile as the above example. But seriously, El Paso and Juarez have a densely symbiotic relationship. What affects one usually affects the other. I probably won't change any minds one way or the other, but that's ok. It won't change the way El Paso, Juarez and Southern NM work together and will continue to work together in the future.

[Chuco]

Originally Posted by observe

The 4 counties that are included have communities that are actually attached to Albuquerque, Rio Rancho, South Valley, Carnuel, Tijeras, Bernalillo, Placitas, Corrales, Bosque Farms, Los Lunas, Belen. If you add Santa Fe's metro (which is the same distance from ABQ as EP is from LC) its over 1 million. If you go off of estimates of people in the Metro area at any given time it probably hovers around 1 million.
However I think that is ridiculous, it's like including Juarez in your Metro which the federal government does not recognize when it comes to federal monies and other things considered with population.
Other things go into consideration like the number of houses and apartments which Albuquerque has more of than El Paso, also the Airport traffic (passengers boarding and un boarding) Albuquerque's International Sunport handles over 6.5 million passengers a year where as El Paso's International Airport just over 3 million a year. The television market also factors into the equation ABQ #46 ELP #99, it's things like this where the difference in size shows itself.

Have you seen the size of those three counties surrounding Bernalillo County? There are some towns that are over an hour away and are not connected to ABQ at all... and they count towards ABQ's metro area.

We might as well add Dona Ana and Otero counties to El Paso's MSA, since they both are directly connected to El Paso's city limits. Both Otero and Dona Ana rely heavily on El Paso and Ft. Bliss.

El Paso: 736,310
Dona Ana: 193,888
Otero: 62,744
Population: 992,942
Add in the avg # of people that cross the border daily into El Paso: 150,000
Total: 1,142,942 (take away Otero and you have: 1,080,198)
So there are over a million people on some days in the El Paso/Las Cruces area.

Bernalillo (Albuquerque): 615,099
Sandoval: 113,772
Valencia: 70,389
Torrance: 17,551
Santa Fe: 142,407
Population: 959,218
Not really 1 million in ABQ/SF area, but almost there.

El Paso and Las Cruces are 35 miles (or less) apart from city limit to city limit and are connected by towns in between them, Canutillo, Vinton, Anthony, Chamberino, Berino, Vado, La Mesa, San Miguel, Mesquite, Mesilla... all connect El Paso to Las Cruces. As both cities continue to grow towards each other, I'm sure that the El Paso and Las Cruces MSA's will be combined in the future.

Albuquerque and Santa Fe are 54 miles apart and they are not connected by towns. Check out the area on Google maps, click the hybrid button and you will see what I mean.

You may think it is ridiculous for us to include Juarez into our metro area, but that is ok, you are not from here and don't go through what we do. El Paso and Juarez consider themselves sister cities and are a Borderplex. You can literally have one foot in El Paso and one in Juarez..thats how close we are to each other.. our areas of economies, population, entertainment, climate, and so on..are tied together.. whether people like it or not.. So a lot of us do consider them to be a part of our Metro area, because they are connected to us in so many ways. Just because they are across the U.S border does not make them invisible or non-existent.

The reason why ABQ is ranked #46 is because it covers most of New Mexico including some parts of Colorado and Arizona, not just because of Albuquerque itself. El Paso has a small market as it only covers 4 counties.
TV Market Maps (broken link)

Now back to the topic:
El Paso and Las Cruces basically have the same weather year round..very little difference in weather and humidity rates.

[EnjoyEP]

OK, I hate wishy-washy people in the middle, but I think I am going to be one...

I spend about 95% of my time in either Albuquerque or El Paso, and frankly, the cities and their areas in terms of size and population seem about the same...they "feel" about the same. Both seem like pretty decent-sized/large populations, but still somewhat like small big cities.

So we can throw out all of the numbers in the world that we want, but at the end of the day, I think both populations are relatively similar (unless you count Juarez, which obviously is huge, a city of 2+ million.)

Frankly, while I wouldn't particularly consider Santa Fe a part of the Albuquerque MSA, I really don't feel Las Cruces (or Ruidoso, etc.) should be part of EP's either. In the midwest, for example, Chicago or Milwaukee, some of the suburbs may be 40 or more miles away from the city itself, but when you drive out to them, you are going through other relatively fairly inhabited towns/suburbs, etc.

However, when you drive from West El Paso to Las Cruces, you are driving through desert and openness (unless you count Anthony). I consider them close, maybe even sister cities if you will, but they are just too seperated by miles of desert to be considered part of the same MSA. Similar for Albuquerque and Santa Fe.

For me, while I understand fully and respect fully why chuco, holmes, etc., you guys consider Juarez part of the EP metroland area, when I am there, I just really don't. While geographically the cities couldn't get much closer, and obviously culturally and demographically there are immense ties, frankly EP just seems miles seperated from most of Juarez in terms of an MSA, except maybe for the near-border area. Frankly, the big city always gets the title of the MSA's city region, so honestly, if you were to link the two, El Paso would be actually a suburb of Juarez! Now, obviously that is silly and extreme, but I just really feel like due to the national seperation, when crunching stuff like MSA population, it is better to keep them seperate. However, again, I can see why you'd link them...obviously it is hard to discount a city less than 10 miles away of 2+ million people.

[localinsight]

Lipbalm,
Thanks for the tip about taxable income. I am on social security so it is low or none. I cannot afford to buy, either place. Why might las cruces be better? Dumb question, but my ignorance has cost me big time already.