In the latest episode of The Building Texas Show, released July 13, 2026, host Justin McKenzie explores how Socorro, Texas, a small border city east of El Paso, is undergoing a dramatic economic transformation. Mayor Rudy Cruz explains that generations of irrigated farmland are being sold to developers as families abandon agriculture due to increasingly salty irrigation water, reduced water allocations, and triple-digit summer temperatures. '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 tells McKenzie.
The city is responding by establishing a foreign trade zone to attract manufacturing and logistics tenants that can capitalize on cross-border trade with Mexico. This shift is not just about economics but also about preserving history. Socorro is home to 400-year-old adobe missions, and Cruz emphasizes the importance of maintaining the community's cultural roots. '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 says.
A key partnership is 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 incubators on the former Braceros Farm site to help local entrepreneurs overcome rent, payroll, and insurance costs before entering the wider market. The tribe also secured federal highway dollars to rehabilitate an irrigation bridge that the city could not have funded alone.
Education and workforce development are also central to the city's strategy. Socorro ISD's 6A programs allow students to graduate with associate's degrees and barber licenses, while Fort Bliss has shown interest in busing students in for training. Along the Mission Trail, a nine-mile corridor linking three missions, homes have been converted into restaurants, bistros, and breweries that serve pecan and pomegranate beer, keeping 300 to 400 years of foodways alive.
The episode, available now wherever podcasts are heard, profiles the leaders and decisions behind Texas's growth, from border trade zones to small-town Main Streets. For more, listen to The Building Texas Show.
