Harlingen Pushes For Larger Population Total
July 23rd, 2009, 1:12 pm · 4 Comments · posted by Joaquin
A high-level Harlingen city official e-mailed me this week to press the point that his city has a population of 75,000 residents - and not the 67,000 mark I cited in a recent column.
The 67,000 mark is admittedly a guess and based roughly on the average number of residents Harlingen has added this decade. The 75,000 number is also a guess, an estimate by Harlingen City Hall. It may be right. Harlingen, like cities often do, has recently annexed an adjacent area, in this case an area in-and-around Stuart Place Road, going toward La Feria.
There’s likely at least a few thousand residents in that area, which nicely pads Harlingen’s population total. There’s nothing wrong with all of that, and one can see why Harlingen would like to stay ahead of Edinburg, Pharr, and Mission in ranking as the Rio Grande Valley’s third-largest city. Ultimately, though, that’s a race Harlingen is going to lose due to the simple reality of growth patterns.
Edinburg is poised to become the region’s third-largest city - probably sooner than later. A big reason why is ample space to grow in residing next door to a hemmed-in McAllen. Edinburg is getting spill-over growth from McAllen, a land-locked city that also has higher residential and housing costs than Edinburg.
Edinburg has also a huge school district in terms of sheer size in square miles. Residential development is filling up much of the district’s territory to the north, adding up to more population for the city. It’s just a guess, but I think the 2010 Census will show Edinburg, Harlingen, Mission and Pharr closely bunched in population, and then as the decade unfolds, the three Hidalgo County cities will each edge out Harlingen in population.
It’s a bit of an ego blow for Harlingen, but it’s hardly fatal. Harlingen remains a fine city to live and work, and there’s enough growth to make things interesting. Cities in their desperation to grow and make a bang with the public at times overreach with overly expensive projects and overly generous subsidies for new business. It would be better for Harlingen to focus on its basics - streets, good police and fire services, improve its library so it’s open more than a scant few hours every weekend, all the sorts of things that make a city more livable.
Growth isn’t everything, and sometimes it’s overrated. Brownsville’s city limits start just outside of San Benito on the expressway. That’s rather ridiculous, maybe laughable, given that Brownsville can’t provide decent services, at times, for the residents who live in the actual city, and not some far-flung area annexed to boost City Hall egos.
Harlingen will be fine whether it’s the third, fourth or fifth-largest city in the Valley. Better to be good than big for the sake of size.
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Just like the City of McAllen put it a few years ago…Its Quality that counts not Quantity. Which is why I think they do well economic wise even though they are landlocked. It seems like all the cities in the Valley except for McAllen care about population. They need to focus more on the quality of the city and its services.
Much of McAllen’s prosperity - historically - has been tied to the vast amounts of business it generates from Mexican nationals, especially the more affluent families of Monterrey. Now, more of that business is being spread throughout the Valley with retail developent at outlet mall and in Brownsville.
McAllen has done well economically mainly due to the Mexican consumer - and the Valley consumer as well. They will have to readjust some now.
Yes Joaquin I understand that. It is spreading but McAllen as of last year has already been in preperations and planning to readjust and diversify its economy. My point was - They dont care about how much population they add, they care about the quality and the services, attractions, entertianment, arts, conventions, things other than shopping you can do to still attract the savvy Monterrey people and others across the valley. Laredos NBC affiliate just did a 2 part story on why McAllen is still doing better off than Laredo during these tough times. McAllen isent looking to add to population which was the point of the article.
Thanks for your comments, James, on the column. I agree with much of what you write. We’re your a city of about 100,000 residents, (McAllen), and have the revenues of a city three times that size due in good part to the fantastic business and sales tax funds derived from shopping tourists (mostly high-end Mexican nationals), it sure is easier to fund and plan for quality services and big convention centers.