El Paso vs. Albuquerque (Houston, San Antonio: luxury, military, condos)

[6/3]

Well one thing i do miss in the ''El Paso vs Albuquerque'' is that UTEP and UNM are no longer in the same conference on sports. That used to be great rivalries especially in Basketball when they always played twice a year and also were each others traveling partners when playing conference teams on the road. In the 70's it was Haskins vs Ellenberger and the 80's it was Haskins vs Colson and the 90's it was Haskins vs Bliss in the coaches rivalry.

Also sad that the Hockey teams do not play each other like they used too as again that was a great rivalry with the El Paso Buzzards vs the New Mexico Scorpions.

Also imagine if El Paso's 25 plus High schools left the Texas school system and joined New Mexico's as the playoffs would be so much cooler so imagine in the football playoffs for example Franklin vs La Cueva at UNM Stadium for the 5A title or Montwood vs Mayfield with the title game in the Sun Bowl for the 5A football title or Austin vs Artesia for the 4A Title (cool to pretend).

So i wish both cities would build new arenas and possibly play each other in sports again as that would great again for the city rivalries. If Tulsa can build a brand new 18,000 arena downtown then why can't we......

http://www.city-data.com/forum/tulsa...new-arena.html Picture of it.

[Chuco]

Originally Posted by abqsunport

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.

This is very easy to disagree with. All you really have to compete with in your state is Las Cruces and Santa Fe! LOL! The only major airport that your state has is in ABQ! The only real city in the state of New Mexico that is considered a large city is ABQ..
New Mexico has only one metro area with over 200,000 people: ABQ
Texas has 17 metro areas with over 200,000 people. These 16 other areas compete with El Paso when it comes to tax money from the state, money for everything comes from the state and we have to compete with everyone else directly whether its for highways, schools, etc... ABQ does not have this problem. You have only a few small towns in your state to compete with for your tax money.

I never see us competing more with ABQ, more so than the other cities in this state..mainly because we are Texans and we do have other major cities in our state to compete with..unlike ABQ. Time Zones have nothing to do with it, heck even Juarez was in the Central Time Zone up until a few years ago...

Juarez Population: 1.8 Million (Guesstimate)
El Paso Poupulation: 600,000
Sorry, 3X bigger, not 4. Nonetheless, much bigger.

Juarez Metropolitan Area: 1.6 million (1.3 million, 2005 city estimate)
El Paso Metropolitan Area: 736,000
3x bigger??? Are you sure??? First it was 4X bigger, now its 3X bigger..you want to keep going? You will probably get it right the next time.

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.

80 miles around ABQ and you end up with 960,000, nice number.. 80 miles around EP and you get 2.5 million.. thats a big difference.

These people pay taxes when they come shopping, use our airport, stay at our hotels, see shows at the Plaza, go to the zoo, go to UTEP games, and so on. Thats why you see three common license plates when you drive anywhere in El Paso: Texas, New Mexico, and Chihuahua. As I said before, 150,000 people cross into El Paso on a daily basis from Mexico, most of those people come and spend their money here as well..so that helps us out tremendously. I would say that the billions of $$ that they spend in El Paso annually is a huge benefit, wouldn't you say so as well?

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.

I've been to the ABQ airport once and I wasn't impressed that much, its a nice airport, but I thought it would be nicer, it is bigger I'll give you that...
On the other hand, I love how El Paso's airport is these days, its easy to get to, it looks much nicer and is ranked as a top ten airport (#6) in North America by J.D. Powers and Associates once again this year.
Smaller airports have big appeal - USATODAY.com
"J.D. Power 2007 North American Airport Satisfaction Survey"
Fliers pick Las Vegas McCarran as favorite airport - USATODAY.com
EL PASO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT RANKS AMONG TOP TEN AIRPORTS IN J.D. POWERS AND ASSOCIATES 2006 NORTH AMERICAN AIRPORT SATISFACTION SURVEY | Government from AllBusiness.com (broken link)

Our airport is only going to get better with the improvements that are on the way.
http://www.elpasointernationalairport.com/documents/PR_HMS_DEC06.pdf (broken link)
http://www.elpasointernationalairport.com/documents/PR_PARADIES.pdf (broken link)

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.

Wrong.
I-10 is a much busier highway system than I-40. I-10 goes through major cities like Los Angeles, Phoenix, Tucson, El Paso, San Antonio, Houston, New Orleans, and Jacksonville. Meanwhile, I-40 goes through ABQ, Oklahoma City, Little Rock, Memphis, and Nashville as its only really large cities.. you can't even compare the two highway systems really.
The Annual Average Daily Traffic numbers for El Paso are more than Albuquerque, so be happy that you have less trucks than we do.
El Paso AADT is 200,680
ABQ AADT is 160,810

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?

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"

What major shopping stores are you talking about, that we should have to make us feel glamorous???

I'm just telling you how it felt as I drove through the city in about 20 minutes going from north to south, no biggie. I know it is much larger than what I drove through, but it definitely does not have a "big city" feel to it IMO. Thats just my opinion.

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.

What I don't get is how ABQ people have to run to defend how it has a larger metro area whenever something about El Paso being bigger gets mentioned. Who cares?
ABQ has a larger metro area
EP has a larger international metro area.
EP city is also larger than ABQ city
ABQ's economy is better than EP's
EP's crime stats are better than ABQ's

You happy now?

El Paso is not more New Mexican than Texan, in fact a lot of Southern New Mexico doesn't have a New Mexican feel to it either IMO. This region is so unique that it has its own feeling to it. We have traditions that range in the Texan, New Mexican, Spanish, American, Mexican, Indian cultures that makes this place feel very different than most other places, this town (Ft. Bliss) was even part of the Confederacy back in the 1860's.. so it feels a lot different than ABQ/NM and the rest of Texas too IMO.

[holmes]

Hehe.. Glad to have sparked the eternal "who's is bigger" debate.

[observe]

Originally Posted by Chuco

This is very easy to disagree with. All you really have to compete with in your state is Las Cruces and Santa Fe! LOL! The only major airport that your state has is in ABQ! The only real city in the state of New Mexico that is considered a large city is ABQ..
New Mexico has only one metro area with over 200,000 people: ABQ
Texas has 17 metro areas with over 200,000 people. These 16 other areas compete with El Paso when it comes to tax money from the state, money for everything comes from the state and we have to compete with everyone else directly whether its for highways, schools, etc... ABQ does not have this problem. You have only a few small towns in your state to compete with for your tax money.

I never see us competing more with ABQ, more so than the other cities in this state..mainly because we are Texans and we do have other major cities in our state to compete with..unlike ABQ. Time Zones have nothing to do with it, heck even Juarez was in the Central Time Zone up until a few years ago...


Juarez Metropolitan Area: 1.6 million (1.3 million, 2005 city estimate)
El Paso Metropolitan Area: 736,000
3x bigger??? Are you sure??? First it was 4X bigger, now its 3X bigger..you want to keep going? You will probably get it right the next time.

80 miles around ABQ and you end up with 960,000, nice number.. 80 miles around EP and you get 2.5 million.. thats a big difference.

These people pay taxes when they come shopping, use our airport, stay at our hotels, see shows at the Plaza, go to the zoo, go to UTEP games, and so on. Thats why you see three common license plates when you drive anywhere in El Paso: Texas, New Mexico, and Chihuahua. As I said before, 150,000 people cross into El Paso on a daily basis from Mexico, most of those people come and spend their money here as well..so that helps us out tremendously. I would say that the billions of $$ that they spend in El Paso annually is a huge benefit, wouldn't you say so as well?

I've been to the ABQ airport once and I wasn't impressed that much, its a nice airport, but I thought it would be nicer, it is bigger I'll give you that...
On the other hand, I love how El Paso's airport is these days, its easy to get to, it looks much nicer and is ranked as a top ten airport (#6) in North America by J.D. Powers and Associates once again this year.
Smaller airports have big appeal - USATODAY.com
"J.D. Power 2007 North American Airport Satisfaction Survey"
Fliers pick Las Vegas McCarran as favorite airport - USATODAY.com
EL PASO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT RANKS AMONG TOP TEN AIRPORTS IN J.D. POWERS AND ASSOCIATES 2006 NORTH AMERICAN AIRPORT SATISFACTION SURVEY | Government from AllBusiness.com (broken link)

Our airport is only going to get better with the improvements that are on the way.
http://www.elpasointernationalairport.com/documents/PR_HMS_DEC06.pdf (broken link)
http://www.elpasointernationalairport.com/documents/PR_PARADIES.pdf (broken link)

Wrong.
I-10 is a much busier highway system than I-40. I-10 goes through major cities like Los Angeles, Phoenix, Tucson, El Paso, San Antonio, Houston, New Orleans, and Jacksonville. Meanwhile, I-40 goes through ABQ, Oklahoma City, Little Rock, Memphis, and Nashville as its only really large cities.. you can't even compare the two highway systems really.
The Annual Average Daily Traffic numbers for El Paso are more than Albuquerque, so be happy that you have less trucks than we do.
El Paso AADT is 200,680
ABQ AADT is 160,810


What major shopping stores are you talking about, that we should have to make us feel glamorous???

I'm just telling you how it felt as I drove through the city in about 20 minutes going from north to south, no biggie. I know it is much larger than what I drove through, but it definitely does not have a "big city" feel to it IMO. Thats just my opinion.

What I don't get is how ABQ people have to run to defend how it has a larger metro area whenever something about El Paso being bigger gets mentioned. Who cares?
ABQ has a larger metro area
EP has a larger international metro area.
EP city is also larger than ABQ city
ABQ's economy is better than EP's
EP's crime stats are better than ABQ's

You happy now?

El Paso is not more New Mexican than Texan, in fact a lot of Southern New Mexico doesn't have a New Mexican feel to it either IMO. This region is so unique that it has its own feeling to it. We have traditions that range in the Texan, New Mexican, Spanish, American, Mexican, Indian cultures that makes this place feel very different than most other places, this town (Ft. Bliss) was even part of the Confederacy back in the 1860's.. so it feels a lot different than ABQ/NM and the rest of Texas too IMO.

Lets start with the two airports....
Albuquerque Sunport is more than twice the size, and has more than twice the traffic.
0ver 6 million passengers per year
El Paso airpot 2.5 million passengers per year.

The Albuquerque Sunport plans to expand in the near future....doubling it's size & adding 40 gates.

http://www.cabq.gov/airport/pdf/MP_Summary1.pdf

Albuquerque's downtown is in the middle of a residential boom.....LOFTS
several are now under construction including the 10 floor Anasazi and soon Packard place which will be anywhere from 35 to 45 floors high end residential towers. Those are just the high rises you have several other projects currently in the construction phase.

The freeway's well Albuquerque has TWO major Interstates not just ONE! Which are connected by the BIG I which makes your spaghetti bowl look small & antiquated!

You drove through Albuquerque & it looked small, well the Metro area starts at Belen & ends at Bernalillo (north/south)which is about 40 miles. East to West it starts in Tijeras and ends at the top of nine mile hill about 30 miles. The entire metro area has 1,000 square miles developed.
El Paso by comparison is a narrow city, when you drive through it the entire city just snakes along I-10......without Juarez it would look VERY small. Basically there is no GIRTH to the city!

Albuquerque runs to the metro area to defend it is bigger than El Paso....while El Paso runs to Juarez to defend it's size...hhmmmm!!!

In case you haven't noticed most major cities use their metro areas to get where they are it's the way american cities are.
Atlanta
Denver
Pittsburg
New Orleans
Oakland
Cleveland
Salt Lake City
Just to name a few....are all smaller than El Paso however have a larger Metro area.
Which makes them nationally recognized LARGER cities!!
So yes Albuquerque is BIGGER!!!!!
And is spreading the gap as we speak, growing faster than El Paso.

[holmes]

Honestly I don't care if Albq thinks its bigger. It still looks and feels small to me. Unless juarez becomes a ghost town anytime soon I doubt the relative size of each metro area will change much.

[Chuco]

Originally Posted by observe

Lets start with the two airports....
Albuquerque Sunport is more than twice the size, and has more than twice the traffic.
0ver 6 million passengers per year
El Paso airpot 2.5 million passengers per year.

The Albuquerque Sunport plans to expand in the near future....doubling it's size & adding 40 gates.

http://www.cabq.gov/airport/pdf/MP_Summary1.pdf

Albuquerque's downtown is in the middle of a residential boom.....LOFTS
several are now under construction including the 10 floor Anasazi and soon Packard place which will be anywhere from 35 to 45 floors high end residential towers. Those are just the high rises you have several other projects currently in the construction phase.

The freeway's well Albuquerque has TWO major Interstates not just ONE! Which are connected by the BIG I which makes your spaghetti bowl look small & antiquated!

You drove through Albuquerque & it looked small, well the Metro area starts at Belen & ends at Bernalillo (north/south)which is about 40 miles. East to West it starts in Tijeras and ends at the top of nine mile hill about 30 miles. The entire metro area has 1,000 square miles developed.
El Paso by comparison is a narrow city, when you drive through it the entire city just snakes along I-10......without Juarez it would look VERY small. Basically there is no GIRTH to the city!

Albuquerque runs to the metro area to defend it is bigger than El Paso....while El Paso runs to Juarez to defend it's size...hhmmmm!!!

In case you haven't noticed most major cities use their metro areas to get where they are it's the way american cities are.
Atlanta
Denver
Pittsburg
New Orleans
Oakland
Cleveland
Salt Lake City
Just to name a few....are all smaller than El Paso however have a larger Metro area.
Which makes them nationally recognized LARGER cities!!
So yes Albuquerque is BIGGER!!!!!
And is spreading the gap as we speak, growing faster than El Paso.

Ahhh, you gotta love Observe, too bad these New Mexico guys bend the truth quite a bit to support their statements.

First, the ABQ airport is double the size of El Paso's airport, but El Paso's passenger traffic is not 2.5 million per year, its actually 3.4 million per year and rising yearly. ABQ's master plan for the ABQ airport was from 2002 and it doesn't say that it will expand again, but that it has the possibility of expanding again if it needs to, I don't see it expanding for another 20 years.. EP Airport also has a master plan and expanding too if it has to.. so what? That doesn't mean that its going to happen. It's just a plan at the moment, thats it. I love the smaller size of our airport, other people love it too, with our airport being ranked as the 6th best overall in North America by J.D. Powers is quite an accomplishment. And those additions that I listed in my earlier post are being built right now, and are not just "plans" that are being considered to be built. Our Airport is going to be better than ever, in just a few months.

That is good that your downtown lofts are booming, congrats. The Packard Place is expected to be 30 floors, not the 35-45 floors like you are dreaming about. Big deal, it will probably still be smaller than the tallest building in Midland.
Having lived in really large cities with really tall buildings, these smallish 40 story and under buildings are not impressive. Neither El Paso or ABQ has any really tall buildings.

It took you how long to get that Big I? Like 50 years after we had our Spaghetti bowl.. LOL! We plan on getting several other interchanges, primarily at our Loop 375 - I-10 Interchange. We have now three freeways and a fourth one (Inner Loop) is currently being built as we speak. Several other freeways around town are in the planning stages, our highways are actually ahead of pace when you compare the two cities, and we have more AADT than ABQ does.

Its really funny how these ABQ peeps wish Juarez would just disappear so they could really claim that they are bigger than El Paso. EP/Jz is the 48 largest metropolitan area in the Americas, ABQ isn't even the top 100. El Paso is the 21st largest city in the USA, ABQ is the 33rd largest city in the U.S.A.
ABQ has towns that are located over a 100 miles away from its downtown and are not even connected to ABQ in any way and they still count towards their metropolitan area..
Yet we can't count Juarez, even if they are located literally right next to us and 150,000 of their people come over every single day.

Atlanta, Denver, Pittsburgh, New Orleans, Oakland, Cleveland, Salt Lake City all have really large suburban metropolitan areas that number way over 1.5 million people, ABQ or El Paso do not. You can't even compare those cities to what ABQ and EP have. Nice try at the argument though.

[Chuco]

Originally Posted by holmes

Honestly I don't care if Albq thinks its bigger. It still looks and feels small to me. Unless juarez becomes a ghost town anytime soon I doubt the relative size of each metro area will change much.

I agree, I'm not sure why some ABQ folks always have to run everywhere to try and tell everyone that they are bigger than El Paso. It seems pretty funny to me.

[Muhnay]

Insecurity. They have to do it, because they live in our shadow.

[abqsunport]

Originally Posted by Chuco

80 miles around ABQ and you end up with 960,000, nice number.. 80 miles around EP and you get 2.5 million.. thats a big difference.

WRONG!!!!!!! Santa Fe Metro alone (which includes the likes of Edgewood which is 20 minutes from albuquerque) is 183,506. So that alone is over 1,000,000. Add Grants, Los Alamos, Soccorro, et al. But way to not due a full all out research. And guess what, they all pay New Mexico taxes. Unlike the 650,000 of your citizens of yours that pay texas taxes.

Wrong.
I-10 is a much busier highway system than I-40. I-10 goes through major cities like Los Angeles, Phoenix, Tucson, El Paso, San Antonio, Houston, New Orleans, and Jacksonville. Meanwhile, I-40 goes through ABQ, Oklahoma City, Little Rock, Memphis, and Nashville as its only really large cities.. you can't even compare the two highway systems really.
The Annual Average Daily Traffic numbers for El Paso are more than Albuquerque, so be happy that you have less trucks than we do.
El Paso AADT is 200,680
ABQ AADT is 160,810

I-40 Big Cities (population)
Barstow--Gateway to LA (18,000,000)
Flagstaff (130,000)
ABQ (810,000)
Amarillo (250,000)
OKC (1.3 Million)
Ft. Smith Arkan (275,000)
Little Rock (660,000)
Memphis (1.3 Million)
Nashville (1.5 Million)
Knoxville (200,000)
Ashville NC (80,000)
Hickory NC (350,000)
Winston-Salem (450,000)
Greensboro (1.55 Million)
Raleight-Durham (1.6 Million)
Wilmington (400,000)

Compare the major Intersections:

Major Intersections I-40:
I-25 in Albuquerque, NM
I-35 in Oklahoma City, OK
I-30 near Little Rock, AR
I-55 near Memphis, TN
I-65 in Nashville, TN
I-75 in Knoxville, TN
I-85 in Greensboro, NC
I-95 in Benson, NC

Major Intersections I-10

junctions:
I-5 in Los Angeles, CA
I-17 in Phoenix, AZ
I-25 in Las Cruces, NM (Hits I-40 before it I-10)
I-35 in San Antonio, TX (Hits I-40 before it I-10)
I-45 in Houston, TX (Hits I-40 before it I-10)
I-55 near Laplace, LA (Hits I-40 before it I-10)
I-65 in Mobile, AL (Hits I-40 before it I-10)
I-75 near Lake City, FL (Hits I-40 before it I-10)

What major shopping stores are you talking about, that we should have to make us feel glamorous???

Nordstroms, Nieman Marcus, etc. You know, all the stores that most "2 million +" size cities have.

What I don't get is how ABQ people have to run to defend how it has a larger metro area whenever something about El Paso being bigger gets mentioned. Who cares?
ABQ has a larger metro area
EP has a larger international metro area.
EP city is also larger than ABQ city
ABQ's economy is better than EP's
EP's crime stats are better than ABQ's

You happy now?

Why would I be happy, I said all of this in my earlier post, before you started getting defensive.

The fact of the matter is that both cities are nice, neither city is huge (no matter how you would like to twist things), and both are unique compared to the rest of the country.

[abqsunport]

Originally Posted by Muhnay

Insecurity. They have to do it, because they live in our shadow.

Actually, Economically you live in our shadow!

Its really funny how these ABQ peeps wish Juarez would just disappear so they could really claim that they are bigger than El Paso.

Let me ask you a question, when it comes to crime stats, are you glad that you are not associated with Juarez?

ABQ has towns that are located over a 100 miles away from its downtown and are not even connected to ABQ in any way and they still count towards their metropolitan area

Which cities are you talking about????? As far as I know, the farthest town is less than 35 miles. Nice try bending facts though.

And actually, Albuquerque's airport gets 6.5 million passengers per year, so clearly observe was using old information. However, the point he made stands the same.

The Packard Place is expected to be 30 floors, not the 35-45 floors like you are dreaming about. Big deal, it will probably still be smaller than the tallest building in Midland.

First, there was an article in the Albuquerque Journal not to long ago that said Blue Dot Corp was considering making Packard Place 35-40 stories due to the large number of condos already sold. So yes, Observe was right again. Nice try to bring him down though.
What are you talking about with Midland???? Albuquerque already has a building larger than their largest building.

Bank of America Building, Midland TX : 330ft (Emporis)
Bank of Albuquerque Building, Albuquerque NM: 351ft (Emporis)


You guys say we distort facts, but you guys don't even present facts with your arguments.

El Paso is the 21st largest city in the USA, ABQ is the 33rd largest city in the U.S.A.

Once again, City size doesn't mean anything, its all metro. El Paso/Juarez is not a combined metro according to the United States government. If they were, your crime stats would be the worst in the country. Your unemployment would be the worst. Your amount of people living below the poverty line would be the worst.

This forum has gotten too negative. I like El Paso, just not as much as Albuquerque. This guy made his choice, the forum has served its duty.