The latest episode of The Building Texas Show, titled "This Texas Border City Is Trading Farmland for Factories," published July 13, 2026, brings listeners inside Socorro, Texas, a small border city just east of El Paso where generations of irrigated farmland are being sold off to developers. Hosted by Justin McKenzie, the episode features Mayor Rudy Cruz discussing why families are leaving agriculture, how the city is establishing a foreign trade zone, and how the community is rebuilding its economy while preserving its history.
Cruz explains that salty irrigation water, reduced water allocations, and extreme summer heat are pushing younger generations away from inherited farmland toward commercial and industrial development. "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," Cruz said. The city's new foreign trade zone is attracting manufacturing and logistics tenants that benefit from cross-border trade with Mexico. This initiative is part of a broader strategy to diversify the local economy.
The partnership between Socorro and Ysleta del Sur Pueblo, one of only three federally recognized tribes in Texas, is a key element of this transition. Cruz, who previously worked as a small business development specialist for the tribe, described building incubators on the former Braceros Farm site to help local entrepreneurs grow beyond initial hurdles. The tribe also secured federal highway dollars to rehabilitate an irrigation bridge that the city could not have funded alone. On the Mission Trail, a nine-mile corridor linking three missions, homes have been converted into restaurants, bistros, and breweries that keep local foodways alive.
Educational initiatives also play a role. Socorro ISD's 6A programs allow students to graduate high school with associate's degrees and vocational licenses, while Fort Bliss has shown interest in busing students into the district. Cruz emphasized that the city is not erasing its history but building on it. "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," he said.
For more details, listeners can access the full episode of The Building Texas Show, which is available wherever podcasts are heard.
