The Greater El Paso region possesses a unique blend of culture, entertainment and outdoor recreation with enviable weather, with more than 300 days of sunshine per year, mild winter days with averages of 50 degrees, and infrastructure that permits an average commute time of 21 minutes.

Arts and Culture

The area is enriched by the contributions of many cultures and offers a variety of museums, theater performances and musical performances. The Plaza Theatre Performing Arts Center is listed as a “Place of National Historic Significance” on the National Historic Register. The restored Plaza Theater is a state-of-the-art, multiuse performance hall, with two theaters and four meeting spaces available for public use.

The El Paso Museum of Art is one of a handful of institutions in the United States that has a permanent display of the Kress Collection. The El Paso Symphony is the state’s oldest operating orchestra group.

Outdoor Adventure

Our outdoor recreation is world famous. A quick two-hour jaunt will land you in the scenic Lincoln National Forest, Gila Wilderness or Hueco Tanks State Park — the perfect locales for hiking, camping, fishing and rock climbing.

Enjoy fishing at various lakes and rivers in West Texas and Southern New Mexico, or tackle your favorite water sport at Elephant Butte Lake. Come winter, escape to Ski Apache in Southern New Mexico to ski a 12,000-foot peak with more than 7,000 acres of skiing terrain. Ski Apache features 55 trails served by 11 lifts, including New Mexico’s only gondola.

Numerous public and private golf courses in the region offer a variety of venues, from traditional layouts to mountain courses or desert links.

Education

El Paso offers residents a choice of nine school districts, providing a wide range of educational offerings. El Paso voters have also recently approved $645 million in bonds to build new schools and renovate many existing campuses throughout the city. The El Paso community offers top-notch private schools (K–12) with various secular or religious affiliations. Since 1985, public and private schools in El Paso County have been honored with the National Blue Ribbon School award.

Affordable Homes

The region’s median home cost is lower than those of Texas and national medians. The median housing cost in the Greater El Paso region was $131,600 in 2009, lower than the median housing cost in the U.S. ($215,600).

Sports

Spectator sports include minor-league baseball (El Paso Diablos), professional soccer (El Paso Patriots), and NCAA Division I football, basketball, volleyball, track and field, golf and more at The University of Texas at El Paso (Conference USA) and New Mexico State University (WAC). El Paso is home to the Sun Bowl Classic — America's second-oldest postseason collegiate bowl game.

El Paso Convention and Visitors Bureau — visitelpaso.com

Cost of Living

The ACCRA Cost of Living Index provides a useful and reasonably accurate measure of living-cost differences among urban areas. Items on which the index is based have been carefully chosen to reflect the different categories of consumer expenditures. Weights assigned to relative costs are based on government survey data on expenditure patterns for professional and executive households. According to the ACCRA, El Paso's cost of living was 90.3 for 2010 of the national average.Texas residents do not pay a personal income tax.

All items are priced in each urban area at a specified time and according to standardized specifications; the index does not measure inflation (price change over time). Also note that the index reflects cost differentials for professional and executive households in the top-income quintile.

When interpreting the data, note that the index measures relative price levels for consumer goods and services. The average for all participating urban areas equals 100 (where each urban area’s index is measured as a percentage of the U.S. average). Please see the table below for details.

Crime Rate

El Paso ranked Safest U.S. city (among cities with population 500,000+).

El Paso was named the safest large city in the United States, according to rankings released November 22, 2010 by CQ Press a publishing firm based in Washington, D.C. Though the city has been ranked in the top three each year since 1997, this is the first time El Paso has taken the top spot for having the lowest crime rate among cities of more than 500,000 population in the annual rankings. Also El Paso was ranked as the eighth-safest metro in the U.S., according to Farmers Insurance Group’s fifth annual Most Secure U.S. Places to Live, 2009 publication.

The City of El Paso Police Department is a dynamic and innovative entity currently composed of more than 1,100 officers and nearly 300 civilian employees who serve with pride and dedication. The department’s efforts are supported by a large contingent of community volunteers who donate their time to perform a variety of essential and valuable duties.

The table below presents a comparison of El Paso's Violent and Property Crime Rates against other cities.

Healthcare

Sierra Providence Health Network

Sierra Providence Health Network brings together advanced technology and services in caring for you and your family, which has earned the network two consecutive National Consumer Choice Awards. The system is comprised of five hospitals, which include ...

• 508-bed Providence Memorial Hospital
• 106-bed Children’s Hospital at Providence
• 334-bed Sierra Medical Center
• 48-bed Sierra Providence Physical Rehabilitation Hospital
• 100-bed Sierra Providence Eastside Hospital

Sierra Medical Center recently received recognition from HealthGrades as having a general-surgery program that rates in the top 5 percent nationally. Sierra Providence Physical Rehabilitation Hospital is equipped to handle brain injuries and other serious disorders and is the only hospital in El Paso that holds nine CARF accreditations.

The network also provides advanced healthcare services to outlying communities of West Texas and Southern New Mexico, and to our international neighbors in Northern México. Sierra Providence Health Network is the only provider of gamma-knife and major transplant services in the area and was the first to bring services such as neonatal intensive-care services and open-heart services to El Paso.

Del Sol Medical Center

Del Sol Medical Center, a 293-bed acute-care facility, is the only full-service hospital in East El Paso. The hospital specializes in:

• Emergency medicine
• Cardiovascular care
• Oncology
• Neuroscience
• Maternal/child services
• Women’s services
• Rehabilitation

Del Sol has a nationally accredited Chest Pain Center in its emergency department that provides immediate evaluation and treatment options for patients who may be experiencing a heart attack. It was selected by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation as one of only 10 hospitals nationwide to participate in Expecting Success: Excellence in Cardiac Care, a program aimed at reducing racial and ethnic gaps in the delivery of cardiac care. Del Sol provides a dozen specialized treatment centers — also in East El Paso — that provide services for:

• Weight-loss surgery
• Wound management
• Diabetes management
• Radiation oncology
• Diagnostics
• Heart-failure management
• Sleep disorders
• Teen pregnancy

Serving El Paso since 1974, Del Sol Medical Center is part of HCA, the nation’s largest hospital system. It continues to offer quality care, acquire new technology, expand services, obtain all accreditations possible, and meet the growing needs of the community.

University Medical Center of El Paso (UMC)

University Medical Center of El Paso is the region’s only not-for-profit, community-owned hospital and health system, and a regional referral center for patients in need of specialty care. Licensed by the state of Texas and accredited by the Joint Commission, University Medical Center of El Paso is a three-time designee as one of America’s Top 100 hospitals.

The 327-bed acute-care teaching facility is affiliated with the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center and the new Paul L. Foster School of Medicine. It provides a wide range of state-of-the-art inpatient and outpatient services, many of which are unavailable elsewhere in the region. For example, UMC is the only hospital in the region to meet the stringent requirements established by the state of Texas and the American College of Surgeons for Level I Trauma Centers.

As such, it is home to the only Level I Trauma Center within 280 miles of El Paso and is the designated hospital where the president, vice president and/or former presidents of the United States will be treated should they require medical attention while traveling in the region. UMC is a regional referral center in the fields of obstetrics, neonatology and pediatric intensive care. UMC is the only hospital in the region with round-the-clock coverage — its fellowship-trained board-certified physician specialists are in-house 24/7. UMC will soon be home to the regions first-ever, separately licensed children’s hospital, scheduled to open in the spring of 2012.

Las Palmas Medical Center

Las Palmas Medical Center, an HCA facility located on the West Side of El Paso, employs 905 individuals who work every day to provide patient care to the El Paso, Cd. Juárez and Southern New Mexico regions. Las Palmas Medical Center offers a full circle of care, starting with the Las Palmas LifeCare Center, a wellness facility that is medically based as well as an outpatient rehabilitation center; Las Palmas Medical Center, an acute-care hospital that is licensed for 277 beds; and the Las Palmas Rehabilitation Hospital, licensed for 40 beds. Las Palmas Medical Center offers a full range of services, to include:

• Surgery
• Women’s and children’s services
• Neonatal Intensive Care Unit
• Pediatric Intensive Care Unit
• Cardiovascular services
• Oncology (both radiation and infusion)

Customer-service scores within the Las Palmas Medical Center Emergency Room rank in the top 10 percentile of all HCA facilities nationwide. Las Palmas and its sister hospital, Del Sol Medical Center, have the only accredited Chest Pain Center programs in the region. The Intensive Care Unit at Las Palmas Medical Center is staffed with accredited intensive-care nurses. Las Palmas Medical Center houses a Pediatric Transport Team of highly trained individuals who transport critically ill children to the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, which is supervised by a fellowship-trained pediatrician who specializes in critical care.

Memorial Medical Center (Las Cruces, New Mexico)

Memorial Medical Center is a JCAHO-accredited acute-care facility offering comprehensive care, including the latest in diagnostic, therapeutic and rehabilitative services on an inpatient and outpatient basis.

Memorial Heart Center provides heart and vascular care, Memorial Ikard Cancer Treatment Center provides cancer treatment, and Fast Track offers quick, nonemergency care through the emergency department. Home care is available through Memorial Home Health, and the Family Medicine Clinic offers care for the whole family. Employees work closely with 320 credentialed providers to support a full range of medical specialties.

William Beaumont Army Medical Center (WBAMC)

William Beaumont Army Medical Center is a Department of Defense medical facility located in El Paso, Texas. It provides comprehensive care to all beneficiaries, including:

• Active-duty military
• Dependants
• Retirees

Serving as a major teaching hospital and as a regional trauma center during peace and war, WBAMC provides comprehensive, cost-effective and customer-focused healthcare as part of a fully integrated health system for the Greater Fort Bliss community beneficiaries while enabling combat-ready soldiers.

The medical center performs, on average, 4,000 laboratory procedures, and fills more than 3,000 pharmacy requests daily. WBAMC is a Level II Trauma Center and is one of only two trauma centers in El Paso County. Between 15 and 25 percent of trauma cases in the area are treated here. Sixty percent of the trauma cases treated are military, and 40 percent of those are family members of active-duty military.

El Paso Specialty Hospital

With the newest and most sophisticated technologies and equipment, this 31-bed facility offers both outpatient and inpatient services in spacious surgery suites. Its team of physicians is made up of a diverse group of highly skilled, highly trained physicians specializing in all aspects of orthopedic, neurosurgical, pain-management and rehabilitative care.

By incorporating the concept that being focused in one specialty creates higher degrees of expertise, this hospital is ranked top 5 percent in the nation, and for two consecutive years has been rated the best hospital in El Paso for total joint replacements and back surgery. It has also received the prestigious President’s Award, Best in the Nation and the Award of Excellence.

The Children’s Hospital at Providence

Offering advanced technologies in a colorful, kid-friendly atmosphere, the Children’s Hospital at Providence continues to further its commitment to improve the scope of pediatric care in El Paso. Experienced pediatric medical professionals, from respiratory therapists to nutritionists and child-life specialists, work hand-in-hand with El Paso’s doctors in an integrated approach mindful of the unique circumstances children face while in the hospital.

http://www.elpasoinc.com/readArticle.aspx?issueid=348&xrec=6651

El Paso has seen 14 murders in the first six months of this, year compared to just one in the same period last year. Sexual assaults are also up sharply.

That raises two questions: Could the sharp increase in homicide and rape knock the city out as the nation's safest big city, and is El Paso suddenly becoming more violent?

The answer to the first is, almost assuredly, no. For the answer to the second, El Paso will have to wait and see.

But this year's crime stats will not affect the CQ Press' new safest-city rankings when they come out in November.

That's because those rankings will be based on violent crime statistics from last year. And in 2010, there were just five murders in El Paso.

The last time the city experienced so few murders was more than 40 years ago, in 1964, when El Paso's population was half of last year's figure of 624,000.

Even in 1964, five murders was unusually low. There were twice as many the year before, in 1963.

When CQ Press announced its 2010 rankings last November, its analysis was actually based on the FBI's Uniform Crime Report for 2009, when there were 12 murders in El Paso.

This year's crime figures won't be counted in CQ's ratings until November 2012. And while murders are up 1,400 percent and rapes up 36 percent for the first six months of this year, other violent crimes are down.

"Everybody's comparing to last year," said Lt. Al Lowe, who has been head of the El Paso Police Department's Crimes Against Persons Unit since 2004. "Last year was an anomaly. It's hard to compare to last year."

He said six of this year's 14 murders involved domestic violence, and four occurred in the commission of other crimes, including a home burglary on Pratt Street in which a mother and daughter were killed.

Two killings were gang and drug related. Two others involved a pair of incidents in which two men drinking started together and wound up in fights that left one of them dead.

Lowe said gang and drug violence does not appear to be on the rise, but there continue to be fights over drugs in which one group tries to "rip off" another.

"These ‘rips' between young people are just about how they want to order the drugs, but don't want to pay for them," he said. "It's become this trend among young people to rip each other off. One way or the other, somebody gets killed.

"These rips have always been there. I don't see an increase."

Question of spillover
Since the start of the bloody turf fight between the Juárez and Sinaloa drug cartels in Cuidad Juárez in 2008, the big question has been whether El Paso is seeing spillover violence.

The answer from law enforcement agencies has always been an emphatic "no." But the next question is whether the brutal killings across the border may be infecting the attitudes of gang members in El Paso.

"Possibly there has been a spillover on assaults," Lowe said. "To me, it's mirroring the assaults from the 1990s."

Between 1990 and 1995, gang fights and drive-by shootings were routinely in the news and accounted for many of the city's 274 killings during those five years, peaking with 56 murders in 1993.

"That was something we used to discuss when we were going into the schools, and we were doing all the anti-drug programs," Lowe said. "From a distance, what they see is money. But, when you get close, you see bullet-holes in the side of a car, a jail sentence and a short life.

"Those presentations seemed to sway people. Is that life impressing to some of the younger people today? We addressed it once, and we're going to have to address it again."

For a full discussion of violent crime in El Paso, see El Paso Inc.'s interview with Lowe starting on page 18.

No. 1 wonder
El Paso's new place as the safest American city with a population over 500,000 is both a point of pride to El Pasoans and wonder to criminologists and sociologists. They have a hard time explaining how a poor city with high unemployment next door to the world's most dangerous city could possibly be so peaceful.

That fact didn't keep one Texas congressman from expressing the conventional wisdom about spillover violence from the Mexican cartel wars.

"Of course there is spillover violence along the border," Rep. Michael McCaul, a Republican whose district stretches from Austin to Houston, told USA Today. "It is not secure and it has never been more violent or dangerous than it is today.

"Anyone who lives down there will tell you that."

But in a 2009 article in Reason Magazine headlined "The El Paso Miracle," a Northeastern University criminologist, Jack Levin, may have put his finger on one aspect of the miracle.

"If you want to find a safe city, first determine the size of the immigrant population," he said. "If the immigrant community represents a large proportion of the population, you're likely to be in one of the country's safer cities.

"San Diego, Laredo, El Paso - these cities are teeming with immigrants, and they're some of the safest places in the country."

El Paso's rise to the top wasn't sudden. The city went back and forth between the second- and third-safest city starting in 2002 before reaching No. 1 last year.

CQ Press' rankings ratings are based on the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports, an annual compilation of eight major crimes: murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary vehicle theft, theft and arson. CQ tosses out theft and arson and analyzes the rest.

A subsidiary of Sage Publications, the Washington D.C.-based CQ Press has been putting out its annual City Crime Rankings report since 2007, when it acquired Morgan Quitno Press.

Morgan Quitno first published its "Safest (and Most Dangerous) Cities" report in 1994.

Taking the heat
Both publishers took heat for listing cities as "safest" and "most dangerous." The protests reached a crescendo in 2007 when the FBI, the U.S. Conference of Mayors and the American Society of Criminology formally objected.

The complaints didn't come from cities at the top of the "safe" list, but from those at the bottom.

The Society of Criminologists called the rankings "an irresponsible misuse of the data and do groundless harm to many communities."

Caught by surprise by the criticism the first year it put out the report, CQ Press changed the name to "City Crime Ratings" in 2008 and carried on.

"A lot of it comes down to folks saying it's UCR data reported by local jurisdictions and there might be discrepancies in how they report crimes," said CQ Press spokesman, Ben Krasney. "Our take is this is the only and the best national data set for national crime stats.

"It's approved and published by the FBI, and what we publish in our reference books helps make sense of what is out there."