Where will be the newest major city?

[DJStephens]

Las Cruces is the big up and coming city on the New Mexico side, that is a really nice place to go if you like National Monuments nearby. 

And they've got New Mexico State, which features their very unique chili pepper development program (the now-famous Hatch Valley peppers emerged from that program).  For some odd reason they never really got into the race to hybridize the hottest pepper available -- for that, you had to head east to South Carolina (the infamous Carolina Reaper!).  Fun stuff!

Las Cruces has a bad economy.  Government and retail.  That's it.  If you can't get a Government Job, it's Wal-Mart for you.  There are three Super Wal Marts and a Neighborhood Wal Mart.  About saturated the market.  Two Albertson's survive, however.  All the big boxes are now here, due to well heeled West Coasters retiring here.  Very few have actually started businesses that hire people and pay a good wage though.   A good number of galleries and boutiques in Mesilla for them.   

[sparker]

Las Cruces is the big up and coming city on the New Mexico side, that is a really nice place to go if you like National Monuments nearby. 

And they've got New Mexico State, which features their very unique chili pepper development program (the now-famous Hatch Valley peppers emerged from that program).  For some odd reason they never really got into the race to hybridize the hottest pepper available -- for that, you had to head east to South Carolina (the infamous Carolina Reaper!).  Fun stuff!

Las Cruces has a bad economy.  Government and retail.  That's it.  If you can't get a Government Job, it's Wal-Mart for you.  There are three Super Wal Marts and a Neighborhood Wal Mart.  About saturated the market.  Two Albertson's survive, however.  All the big boxes are now here, due to well heeled West Coasters retiring here.  Very few have actually started businesses that hire people and pay a good wage though.   A good number of galleries and boutiques in Mesilla for them.   

Since greater El Paso region development out from that city's core seems to be concentrated on I-10 NW through Anthony and Mesquite to Las Cruces and environs,  it would seem inevitable that Las Cruces would be a secondary regional hub; the university and nearby DOD installations have and will continue to provide a significant potion of the regional employment (that must be the "government" employment sector cited above).  But it's likely that with time EP and LC will grow together like pretty much all such configurations in the West -- and unless protracted "turf wars" slow this process down (when 2 states are involved, such things invariably tend to crop up and create issues), eventually one will come into greater El Paso on I-10 from the southeast and pass generally uninterrupted commercial and residential development until well after the US 70 "merge" west of Las Cruces.   So LC will develop -- and might well witness some form of "boom" -- but not as an isolated entity, rather as part of larger-scale regional growth. 

[DJStephens]

  There is about twenty five miles between the southern edge of las Cruces (Exit 144, I-10) and I-10 in Texas, MP 5, the northern edge of El Paso.  Between that is mainly agricultural uses - diary, pecans and some truck vegetables - corn, onions, alfalfa, hay, etc.   Simply cannot see complete fill in of that distance ever occurring.   
  No job base to support that kind of population increase.   Government is just about maxed out, it does employ close to 40-45-50% of all FT Mon-Fri employment in Dona Ana county.  Federal - NASA, WSMR (have been slowly drawing down over time) Border Patrol, Post Office.  State - University, transportation department, Game & Fish, Dept of Labor, and multiple others scattered about.  City and County.  The schools.  Seems endless.   Crony/patronage/spoils system readily apparent. 
  All of the major big boxes are now represented here - Three super Wal Marts, Lowes, Target, Khols, Home depot, Dillards, Sears (which just closed btw).   They don't pay worth a darn, and favoritism is rampant.   Actually the stores here are quite spoiled - they have an unlimited supply of college students and wealthy pensioners to draw from.  Those type of employees don't even need or want full time anyway.   If you don't like your $11/12 hour, you can just leave.  Contrast that with the Oil Patch (Carlsbad, Hobbs, Odessa/Midland) where the big boxes have to pay $15/hour to START just to get anyone with even a pulse.   
  Bad planning.  Both El Paso and Dona Ana county have a reactive approach, rather than a proactive approach to planning, land use decision making, and zoning.   Tex-dot has indeed poured a great deal into El Paso county in recent years, but much of it seems piece-meal and haphazard.  The Go-10 project (what a joke) with it's half billion west side toll road is simply overwrought.  Instead of fixing, widening, and straightening I-10 itself.  Spur 601 and it's terrible connection to Loop 375 with horrible DDI.   Piecemeal interchange replacements on I-10 itself, which did not fix longstanding geometric problems and deficiencies.  Nor was thought given to future needed capacity increases via bridge deck widenings and clearance improvements.  These include Anthony (Exit 0) Vinton (Exit 2) Woodrow Bean Transmountain (Exit 6) Artcraft (Exit 8) Redd Rd (Exit 9) Raynolds (Exit 22) Zaragosa (Exit 32). 
  Dona Ana county struggles with E-W arterials across the valley floor, and has not provided for such as the area has grown over the decades.   Only ONE grade separation for the NS railroad exists, and that is Interstate 10, which was carried over the railroad in 1971-72.  The city of Las Cruces has tripled in size population wise since then, as well as doubling in land area.  No improved US 70 corridor across the N side of town was ever established, it could have been done easily in the late sixties to well into the eighties.   Instead a mixture of reasonably acceptable and design regressive improvements were implemented onto the 70 corridor East of I-25 during the Johnson/Rahn administration in the late nineties/early 00's.