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Old 11-12-2012, 09:48 AM
 
7 posts, read 15,316 times
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Thanks, yes, I'd like to bring the family out. I realize many Mexican-Americans are "white" (being more Spanish than mixed). My wife is 100 percent 'Indio', and our kids look Mestizo, as one would expect.

I like the Texas feel, the kinda "South" meets the real Southwest (I know it's not "Southern" in that part of the state, but still rural and independent, rugged).

Wifey and I may take a trip...it doesn't have to be forever anyhow. It sounds like a pretty safe place for the kids (in fact, recently awarded safest city props...two years running!).

Will let you know. We plan on renting if we go, which I cannot WAIT TO DO...homeowning is over-rated, plus I want a pool, that we cannot afford to buy with a home up here...a pool, that.. someone else takes care of.
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Old 11-12-2012, 04:48 PM
 
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Rural and rugged really does NOT describe El Paso. And it really isn't Texas-y at all either. How long has it been since you've been here??
Also, I think El Paso proper has almost 50,000 more people than DC proper, so not exactly what one would describe as a "small town"!

Last edited by unnativeelpasoan; 11-12-2012 at 05:10 PM..
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Old 11-12-2012, 06:55 PM
 
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Been a couple years. DC means the DC metro area, just like NYC is made up of the boroughs (Queens, Manhattan, etc). I live in Montgomery County (which has approximately one million residents), just above DC. The Metro area, is Montgomery County, PG County, and in VA, Arlington, Alexandria, Fairfax. There are over 600,000 in DC proper, and 5.5 million in the DC metro area (think Dallas-Ft Worth) and over 8 million in the DC/Baltimore metro area (that is actually probably more like the Dallas-Ft. Worth comparison). Dude, I've traveled everywhere in the US and I can assure you, DC dwarfs El Paso and El Paso is very small for a city. We have a complicated subway system, huge roadway system, etc. Trust me..El Paso is slow living to East Coasters.

Anyhow, I like the slower pace, being a Southerner originally. I found the people to be laid back and friendly. And yes, it is rural to people who are from actual cities. I realize you may not have been to DC, Baltimore or Philly, or NYC...but El Paso would be considered "the sticks" by folks from large cities. Personally, having grown up in Roanoke, VA, I prefer that.
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Old 11-12-2012, 07:00 PM
 
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FYI: Understand that DC proper would fit, geographically, into a small area of El Paso (even though DC has the same population). The entire El Paso area is about 800,000 (the entire ELP County), so the DC Metro area (comparable in geography), has about 5 million more people. Yes, El Paso is small. That's what makes it so enticing, it does NOT have the big city feel (surely you must know that if you've been to a big city like NYC, Boston, SF, DC, Miami, Indy, Houston).

How are the schools..
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Old 11-12-2012, 07:43 PM
 
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Sorry, but I disagree with you, and yes I have been to NYC and Jersey before, and I grew up in a metro area of about 3.5 million. El Paso may be small compared to East Coast metro areas, but that does not make it rural. Also, you have to consider the fact that it is part of a bigger metro area when you realize that El Paso/Juarez is really one metro area. And Juarez is like three times the size of El Paso. While I do not think that this area is at all cosmopolitan, I still don't think it has a small town feel whatsoever. But, whatever, suit yourself. You can have it here. Me? I don't care for it.
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Old 11-12-2012, 08:27 PM
 
47,525 posts, read 69,692,979 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by unnativeelpasoan View Post
Sorry, but I disagree with you, and yes I have been to NYC and Jersey before, and I grew up in a metro area of about 3.5 million. El Paso may be small compared to East Coast metro areas, but that does not make it rural. Also, you have to consider the fact that it is part of a bigger metro area when you realize that El Paso/Juarez is really one metro area. And Juarez is like three times the size of El Paso. While I do not think that this area is at all cosmopolitan, I still don't think it has a small town feel whatsoever. But, whatever, suit yourself. You can have it here. Me? I don't care for it.
Yeah -- someone who likes rural isn't likely going to really like El Paso because El Paso might not be a huge megapolis quite yet, it's definitely not what you'd call rural. There used to be rural areas but what's left is filling up with subdivisions very fast. Far too much concrete -- spaghetti bowls going up everywhere to be a rural kind of town. Traffic is getting quite horrendous although it didn't used to be and it's definitely not like you'd see in a small town or rural area. It's not cosmopolitan but rather a lot of urban sprawl.

The weather is decent, there is tons of construction going on just about everywhere. Many housing subdivisions being built in all directions, the mountain is being hacked up for some superhighway and it's sad to see so much destruction of our best asset -- that mountain.
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Old 11-14-2012, 12:40 AM
 
340 posts, read 609,152 times
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Yup. Also, I was curious how crowded things really are in the D.C. metro, so I looked it up. Turns out that the population density of the city of El Paso is actually over 2.5 times more than that of the D.C. metro. Thought that was interesting. Guess I'm not so crazy to feel crowded-in here. (The crowds and traffic are really getting to me lately!)
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Old 11-14-2012, 04:39 AM
 
Location: Texas
471 posts, read 807,413 times
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I left two years ago. I miss the desert and the trips to NM. I don't miss the property taxes I paid to fund the kids who aren't supposed to be here and who will be parents before they drop out or the Mexican flags flying everywhere. Sorry.
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Old 11-15-2012, 07:31 PM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by unnativeelpasoan View Post
Yup. Also, I was curious how crowded things really are in the D.C. metro, so I looked it up. Turns out that the population density of the city of El Paso is actually over 2.5 times more than that of the D.C. metro. Thought that was interesting. Guess I'm not so crazy to feel crowded-in here. (The crowds and traffic are really getting to me lately!)
I too was interested, and curious where you got your data, because the following is noted:

District of Columbia (Washington DC):
City Population: 617,996 (25th largest city in U.S.)
(mostly non residential) Federal district 68.3 sq mi
(residential) Land mass 61.4 sq mi

10,065 inhabitants per square mile.

City of El Paso:
City land mass 250.5 sq mi
City Population 665,568 (US: 19th)

2,446.7 per square mile



Comparing the two “Metro” areas populations of the 366 metro areas in the U.S. as defined by the government:

Washington DC population: #7 with 5,703,948 (the 11th most densely populated Metropolitan area in the United States according to the density survey)


El Paso: #65 with 820,790 (not even on the density list, although Dallas/Ft. Worth is the 12th most densely populated Metro area in the United States...so Texas represents).

So what does this tell us? Despite having a land mass of nearly 200 more square miles (250mi to DC’s 60-something livable, meaning, non “monument” areas and government buildings that have no apartments, etc), and despite the fact that there are almost 50,000 more people in El Paso, which geographically dwarfs Washington DC—Washington DC has a population that is 500 percent more dense than El Paso, and, when compared to El Paso County/Juarez “Metro area” (a very large area with an estimated population of 751,296), the Washington DC Metro (comparable) area only has 5.58 million…so roughly (almost) 5 million more people than the El Paso “Metro” area.

I’ll stipulate El Paso may not be country living, but seriously…no one from an actual big city, would consider El Paso to be anything but a big “small city” (akin to Louisville or Richmond, although I note both of these quaint “towns” are still bigger than El Paso). Or a small big city. That is perhaps why it is growing. People from real big cities, and I don't mean that like it sounds, consider places like El Paso "livable" because the "outskirts" (ex-urbs, suburbs, etc) don't have 1 million people, like Montgomery County, Maryland (Potomac/Bethesda etc), has here 30 seconds from DC. You can live on the "outskirts" and not in the city and be out in the middle of nowhere (ever traveled outside of Indy? North of Mobile? Charleston? Outside/west of Kansas City?). There's nothing outside those cities, compared to the East and West coast megacities.


All sources found easily on Wikipedia.

Insert cliche: "Any questions?"
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Old 11-15-2012, 07:39 PM
 
Location: Mo City, TX
1,728 posts, read 3,442,593 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by unnativeelpasoan View Post
Rural and rugged really does NOT describe El Paso. And it really isn't Texas-y at all either. How long has it been since you've been here??
Also, I think El Paso proper has almost 50,000 more people than DC proper, so not exactly what one would describe as a "small town"!
You don't get out much do you?
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