This Texas Border City Is Trading Farmland for Factories

Mayor Rudy Cruz runs a Texas border city east of El Paso where families are selling farmland their grandparents worked by hand. The irrigation water turned salty, summers now hit triple digits, and the next generation walked away from the tractor. So Socorro is converting that land into a foreign trade zone and the manufacturing and logistics sites feeding cross-border trade with Mexico.

Justin McKenzie sits down with Mayor Cruz on how a city built around 400-year-old adobe missions rebuilds its economy without erasing 400 years of history.

We cover:
→ Why Socorro's farmland is flipping to commercial, industrial, and foreign-trade-zone use
→ How Ysleta del Sur Pueblo, one of only three federally recognized tribes in Texas, partners with the city
→ How Socorro ISD sends kids out of high school with an associate's degree, and why Fort Bliss wants to bus students in
→ The nine-mile mission trail and the 400-year-old adobe mission built from wood and mud, still standing today

The Building Texas Show covers the founders, mayors, and innovators building the future of Texas.

#Socorro #ElPaso #TexasBusiness #BuildingTexas #BorderTrade

00:00 Families are selling the farmland
00:24 Welcome to Socorro, east of El Paso
00:45 The city with a 400-year-old mission
01:08 Three missions and the 9-mile corridor
02:23 How the economy shifted from farms to factories
03:33 Why the farmland is disappearing: water and salt
04:33 Turning farmland into commercial and trade-zone land
04:51 Building jobs to keep the next generation
05:58 The small business incubator plan
07:49 One of only 3 federally recognized tribes in Texas
10:27 Inside Socorro ISD, a 6A district
11:39 An associate's degree straight out of high school
12:44 Why Fort Bliss wants to bus students in
13:18 Come visit: missions, breweries, and pecan beer
13:50 The 400-year-old adobe mission you can still walk
16:48 There's only one Socorro