McAllen's "Changing Face" (El Paso, Brady: best city, school, quality of life)

[Spree]

Originally Posted by TomBradyFan

The sad part is that it resembles a suburban strip but instead of being some suburban strip in McAllen, it's their central core.

Those stores are bringing in jobs and opportunities. This is/was a very poor area of the country.

[vantexan]

One thing I learned living in McAllen for 2 years: there's, at least when I was there, real tension between American Hispanics and Mexicans.. From what I gathered the Mexicans resent the American Hispanics' better life. And the American Hispanics resent being resented. I've seen some posts on this forum that seem prejudicial towards Hispanics. And I experienced prejudice from some Hispanics while l lived on the Border. But make no mistake, most American Hispanics are very proud to be Americans, and very loyal. I haven't been to the Valley since '97 but I did notice there are now 2 Barnes & Noble bookstores there. The Rio Grande Valley has as much to offer as many other places and few places have as nice a winter. One can certainly do worse!

[TomBradyFan]

Originally Posted by Spree

Those stores are bringing in jobs and opportunities. This is/was a very poor area of the country.

Those stores provide service industry jobs with minimum wages to slightly above minimum wages. That's not going to change the socio economics for that city. The Valley is still a very poor area.

[rgv17_956]

Originally Posted by TomBradyFan

Please don't take offense to what I am about to say. I read the articles in the link you provided and I was left very unimpressed. Talk about making a big deal out of an ant hill. The Asian population went from 3,375 in 2000 to 5,350 in 2006. Sadder even, the black population went from 2,807 in 2000 to 3,783 in 2006.

I don't see why there's even a need for a series of articles chronicling this as if McAllen is seriously diversifying. It screams of wanting to be something and pretending to be something your not. And those pictures are a sad representation of McAllen. It's strip mall signs, power line poles and a virtually empty road. The saddest part is that is very very close if not actually is downtown McAllen.

well if you look at the percentages thats a really high jump! The numbers might not seem very impressing but thats a big increase! almost a 59% increase in some ethnic groups.

[TomBradyFan]

It's a nice increase sure, but when you're that low of a number, any increase will seem large percentage wise. The way your newspaper presented was as if blacks went from being 1 out of every 200 to 90 out of every 200 or something. Same for the Asian population. When you see an entire series of articles based around the title "Changing Faces" I'm expecting some substantial. Like New Orleans after Katrina, that was a true changing of faces as the black population shrunk and the white and Hispanic population grew substantially.

Not to even mention the fact that they even put in the article the quote by one black female who has been there two years who is ready to leave. Kind of just throws that entire concept out the window.

[rgv17_956]

here's more scenes from McAllen










photos from Welcome to Flickr - Photo Sharing (http://www.flickr.com - broken link)
http://l.yimg.com/www.flickr.com/images/spaceball.gif (broken link)

http://l.yimg.com/www.flickr.com/images/spaceball.gif (broken link)

[TomBradyFan]

60% of those pictures show strip malls.

[doss1]

Hey rvphoto17, those pics are better. Thanks.

The problem with the border cities compared to other small towns is that the border cities put emphasis on the service and fast-food industries. It does not give the average low income person a chance to succeed or do better. It's an endless cycle--little juanita grows up to run a taco stand like her daddy. Joe graduates high school and works in the local whataburger. Why do they do this? Because the city does not provide better quality of life for these people. Look at the local newspapers. What is celebrated? The opening of more big-box stores. A new Target? Lets rejoice! A new Best Buy? Yes, now we can complete with CITY XYZ! The local border towns are too concerned about how they appear to an outside audience in hopes of attracting more of the same type of people--people that work in low paid service industries and the like. You heard the saying...if you don't leave the Valley by X year, you'll never leave! It's true. Why? because the valley does not have the types of jobs that further the quality of life in the region.

It's an endless cycle. New walmarts, new mcdonalds, new big box stores....that's great and all for the consumer but not the person trying to break out of the low income mold. This is my main complaint with living down in that region. McAllen seems to be fixing that problem a little more lately, but I'm not quite convinced yet.

[jabbit]

yep strip malls. not too exciting. the more progressive areas in our state are trying to rid themselves from them.

[RGV]

For some reason, everytime I read TBF's responses I get the image of Eustace from Courage the Cowardly Dog.