El Paso’s business community has seen enough. The last straw – or the wakeup call — may have been in 2003 when Toyota chose San Antonio as the site for its newest automotive assembly plant and the economic boom that surely will accompany that development.

        While El Paso never was a contender for the Toyota plant, the selection of San Antonio was eye-opening, says Bill Allen, CEO of ByrneAllen, a consulting group hired by the Greater El Paso Chamber of Commerce to help raise $2.5 million for economic development. “That was the icing on the cake,” Allen says.

        San Antonio’s win prompted local business leaders to wonder if El Paso could ever compete at that level, Allen says. Other cities in the Southwest United States – Albuquerque, Tucson, Phoenix, for example – have seen their economic base expand and prosper at a greater rate than El Paso. What is it they do that El Paso doesn’t?

        According to Allen, those cities have a coordinated, well-funded plan for economic development. And now, maybe El Paso does too.

        ¡Vamos El Paso! is an economic development plan that calls for raising $2.5 million to fund a five-year business recruitment and retention plan.

Background

        According to the Greater El Paso Chamber of Commerce, the El Paso region has undergone a dramatic transformation in the past decade. In recent years, El Paso has seen the erosion and virtual disappearance of the garment industry, which once provided more than 25,000 jobs.

        Despite this, the region has realized a net gain of 21,000 jobs over the past seven years. Consumers, new service sector jobs and maquila industries in Ciudad Juárez largely drove this job growth.

        The current economic slowdown in the United States, along with simultaneous changes in the maquiladora outlook and security measures in the wake of Sept. 11, poses challenges for continued growth and progress in the region. According to the chamber, successful economic development will only occur to the extent that the community provides the resources and attributes that will meet the needs of existing and future businesses and industries.

            What does that mean in measurable terms? It means hosting a minimum of 80 companies visiting El Paso and 50 visiting Juárez every year. It means creating 20,000 new jobs in El Paso over the next five years and...

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