In the latest episode of The Building Texas Show, titled "This Texas Border City Is Trading Farmland for Factories," host Justin McKenzie explores the economic transformation of Socorro, Texas, a small border city east of El Paso. Mayor Rudy Cruz explains why families are selling off generations of irrigated farmland to developers, driven by salty irrigation water, reduced water allocations, and extreme summer heat that make farming unsustainable.
Cruz notes, "It's sad to see the farmland going away... the water isn't what it used to be. There's a lot of salt here and the salt kills off a lot of those plants." As grandkids inherit farmland but find it unviable, they are turning to commercial and industrial deals. The city is responding by establishing a foreign trade zone to attract manufacturing and logistics tenants that support cross-border trade with Mexico.
Key to this transition is the partnership between Socorro and Ysleta del Sur Pueblo, one of only three federally recognized tribes in Texas. Cruz, who previously worked as a small business development specialist for the tribe, describes building business incubators on the former Braceros Farm site. These incubators help local entrepreneurs overcome startup costs before entering the wider market. The tribe also secured federal highway dollars to rehabilitate an irrigation bridge the city could not have funded alone.
Socorro ISD's 6A programs offer students pathways to associate's degrees and barber licenses, while Fort Bliss has expressed interest in busing students in for training. On the Mission Trail, a nine-mile corridor linking three missions, homes have been converted into restaurants, bistros, and breweries serving pecan and pomegranate beer, preserving 300 to 400 years of foodways.
Cruz emphasizes the importance of balancing growth with heritage. He invites visitors to see a 400-year-old adobe mission, saying, "You want to see a building that was built by people with their own hands 400 years ago? Come down here and visit it. It's an adobe structure built with these natural elements of wood and mud, but at the same time, it tells a story of the people that still reside here."
The episode is part of The Building Texas Show, which profiles mayors, founders, tribal leaders, and operators shaping the Texas economy. This episode highlights how Socorro is navigating the tradeoffs of losing farmland while building a new economic foundation, with implications for border communities facing similar pressures from water scarcity and shifting global trade dynamics.
