Very interesting study on who is moving and why (Houston: sales, real estate)

[leavingsoon]

10.1007/s11113-007-9023-z

Here is a link to a UTEP study on who is leaving El Paso and why.

VILLESCAS RESEARCH, MEDIA, & INSTRUCTION - Reports & Articles (http://www.villescas.org/reports__articles - broken link)

This is a page with a pdf of a survey of El Paso expats and why they left and why they will or will not return. Interesting reading with more concrete numbers than anecdotes from people who wish El Paso to be more than it is.

[malamute]

Originally Posted by leavingsoon

10.1007/s11113-007-9023-z

Here is a link to a UTEP study on who is leaving El Paso and why.

VILLESCAS RESEARCH, MEDIA, & INSTRUCTION - Reports & Articles (http://www.villescas.org/reports__articles - broken link)

This is a page with a pdf of a survey of El Paso expats and why they left and why they will or will not return. Interesting reading with more concrete numbers than anecdotes from people who wish El Paso to be more than it is.

The UTEP study is interesting -- and if city leaders ever intend to turn around the out-migration, economy, and the wages, they should be paying attention to this kind of study. They won't. They'll just go on seeing higher property taxes as the answer and expensive projects.

[Muhnay]

Humm.. thank you. Some great stuff there. I recall saying many of the points made in my post.. and hey I did not need a college education to figure it out.. or perform a study.

[TexanWest]

It is a very interesting study, and, as Muhnay said, you don't need a study to figure out why people leave.

El Paso has built its reputation on being a supplier of cheap labor and cheap cost of living. Now it's coming back to haunt us. Anybody can go to a website and compare his/her salary here to what he/she would be making in San Antonio, Phoenix, or Dallas. Why should anyone want to stay when they see that moving a few hours east, west, or north will result in a $10K increase in income?

Once Levi's, Farah, and all the garment factories shut down, El Paso's cheap labor wasn't needed anymore. When the call centers leave, what then?

I love El Paso, but it's so hard to stay when you see that what you earn here won't allow you to fill up your 401(k) and put some cash in the bank.

[HIGH!Lonesome]

This is a very good study and it's most unfortunate but true, El Paso dont have the proper infrastruture, "economicly" to keep it's young people from moving elsewhere and city leaders are not doing anything to correct or fix this problem and if nothing is going to be done about it, El Paso could be headed for some harsh times up ahead.

I'm not really worreid about this because this does not affect me in anyway when I move back to El Paso, I'll be retired by then, but what does worry me a little is the kind and quality of residents that will reside in El Paso by then.

There was that article today in the El Paso Times about barrio azteca gang thinking that they own El Paso? thats very poor puplicity.

[Muhnay]

High.. here is some important info on: Barrio Azteca

[HIGH!Lonesome]

Very interesting piece of information, these guys could really pose a threat to national security or just plainly disrupt everyday form of life for everyday kind of people,
they seem organized and manipulating crazies kind of charactors, lets hope the military increases screening and background checks, Barrio Sandoval is where my grandparents ranch use to be, what a waste of good real estate, I bet my grandparents are turning in their graves. thanks muhnay.

[Six Foot Three]

Hmm....i heard Obama say that he's going to change NAFTA so it helps the U.S. factories so we'll see what happens. Also keep in mind that there are other cities/states in this country that are doing BAD....Like Michigan and Detroit and also Ohio and it's cities like Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton and Cincinnati.

Also once booming areas are now hurting do to the housing slowdown like Florida and Arizona and also Las Vegas. I just read reciently that Jacksonville Florida's Unemployment Rate is the highest since 9/11.

So it looks like there alot of areas that have people leaving and just EP only.

[leavingsoon]

Originally Posted by leavingsoon

10.1007/s11113-007-9023-z

Here is a link to a UTEP study on who is leaving El Paso and why.

VILLESCAS RESEARCH, MEDIA, & INSTRUCTION - Reports & Articles (http://www.villescas.org/reports__articles - broken link)

This is a page with a pdf of a survey of El Paso expats and why they left and why they will or will not return. Interesting reading with more concrete numbers than anecdotes from people who wish El Paso to be more than it is.

Did everyone read the whole of the first study?

What I found interesting is that it seems to confirm what I have anecdotally heard and it does go against the conventional wisdom here about the "brain drain". The second is a survey which reflects what the consensus of people on here agree with.

I found this website Last Anglo which is obviously a spoof but does in a humorous manner bring to light what I have heard from my nonhispanic friends from El Paso- they are all leaving El Paso. While many do say that jobs are the reason, there are also many who say that it is because the nonhispanic population is drastically falling, although my more liberal friends seem to not like that the bottom line of that is that it seems like they are all for diversity as long as they are not the last white person in the room. In the comment section of the Last Anglo site, the author of the site makes what I think is a very interesting observation- if the flight out of El Paso is due to economic reasons- lack of jobs for the more highly educated- and if the nonhispanic population is more likely to obtain higher level degrees and therefore more likely to leave; is there a point at which it stops being economic and becomes social? I.e. is there a tipping point at which the population of whites and blacks arrives where there will be white flight- where the white and black populations leave not because of jobs but because they look around and don't see any other white or black faces?

The UTEP study seems to be saying that we have arrived at that point. They looked at both census figures and a survey of UTEP students to see why people are moving. Their results were that whites and blacks were leaving El Paso in very high numbers regardless of educational levels. Hispanics were more likely to leave if they were more educated but the hispanic people that were moving into El Paso were just as educated.

I can say that I have seen that- my high school class has almost entirely moved away and I knew whites, hispanics, blacks, asians, indians, and people of middle eastern decent. Most ended up being professionals like doctors, dentists, lawyers, teachers, sales people, etc... Most have said they are not coming back. However, I also know a number of people who moved here after law school who had no connection to the city- most of whom were black or white. Almost of all these people left the city within 2 years and several left within 6 months. Many tap dance around the issue when I ask and end up saying "you know" while others just point blank say that they feel uncomfortable with the levels of Spanish spoken and some of the attitude against nonhispanics.

I realized a few weeks ago when catching up with a few friends that nearly all of my younger friends in the legal community left- I actually counted and I know a dozen young lawyers who have left in the last 4 months.

When I was in law school I knew a large number of white women from El Paso, all single. At one point I was surprised to learn from all of them (and most didn't know each other) that the number 1 reason for them not to come back was the lack of single professional men (the unspoken part was that they needed to be white).

Economically, many of the lawyers I know who are leaving, including people who are partners in large firms here, are going to Dallas and making literally 2-3 times what they can here for doing the same work. At the state bar website- State Bar of Texas | Reports & Statistics there are a number of reports which compare different parts of Texas. The most recent report on El Paso shows that there are currently 1,117 lawyers here, compared to 1,092 10 years ago. First, that is a damn low number. We actually only gained 20 legal jobs in 10 years? In Bexar County, it went from 3,993 to 4,974. In Dallas County, it went from 12,109 to 14,749. In El Paso we are stagnanting (and with the turmoil at Scott Hulse- they have gone from 43-45 lawyers a year ago to 25-26 lawyers now, our numbers have actually probably fallen)- our largest legal employer is the DA. I have friends whose law firms in Houston have tripled in size in 3 years.

While other cities in Texas are adding lawyers, and many of the new ones are corporate lawyers who deal with businesses, we are losing lawyers. While the statistics show that the legal community is dominated by whites here, I have been hearing stories that nonhispanic lawyers were having an almost impossible time finding jobs here even if they are well qualified, I know I did. Within the past few days I actually learned that 3 of the jobs that I did not get were given to less qualified but much more politically well connected white men. All three were relatives of people involved in the group of rich white people pushing downtown redevelopment. I have heard from several other people who were also going for these jobs that this was the case for them and they are leaving because they can't sit in El Paso without jobs forever.

So my rhetorical question is, if indeed these studies are true, are we looking at an exodus of nonhispanics from El Paso? Is this covering not only the legal area but other professional areas such as accounting, engineering, medicine, banking, and business? Are we reaching a point that middle class whites here who are educated and well qualified for professional jobs will not get jobs that require Spanish but will also not get other jobs which are taken by less qualified but politically well connected members of the small group of very wealthy businessmen? If downtown redevolopment is meant to retain and draw back young professionals but they are leaving in large numbers- who the heck is going to live downtown- the relatives of the rich only? Have we reached the point were nothing can turn this around? Or is this good? Are the small number of vocal hispanics who say that they want to kick the "white boys" out correct?

[malamute]

I read the whole thing. And it's obvious that it isn't just the infrastructure here making the more educated leave. And it's not just jobs making the whites, blacks, and American hispanics leave.

According to the UTEP study, jobs and low pay are just one of the factors. Language and culture certainly have a lot to do with it -- but like others said -- we all have heard the people leaving say why. Until the politicians figure it out though -- it's just going to be more of the same.

They're now pinning all hopes on their belief that by having Fort Bliss expand that the military families will stay forever and a children's hospital will fix everything. What happens when the military families find out they will not be given jobs at that children's hospital for lack of Spanish fluency and that they taxes that already absurdly high are going to become much higher?

What they need to do first is cut the combined property taxes here in half. Many people are not going to enjoy the weather here enough to be paying many thousands of dollars to the local government every year just to think they "own" their home.