Commentary: Las Cruces is number 10 on a list of the 20 most underrated cities, according to a new list of rankings published by DK Eyewitness Travel.
Underrated? Should we feel defensive?
I agree with Mayor Ken Miyagishima, who said it’s a positive. Underrated doesn’t necessarily imply anything negative. It means that we haven’t been fully discovered yet, to use the mayor’s wording.
As I commented close to a year ago on KRWG.org, to get discovered we need to create an identity and name recognition for Las Cruces.
It’s called economic development marketing, and many cities, like Atlanta for example, have sustained these corporate recruitment campaigns for decades.
Such campaigns often complement or mirror travel industry branding targeting visitors. The rule definitely applies in our case, because our tourist assets are also marketing assets to attract more business investment and job creation.
Why not launch a campaign to promote what I called a year ago, “Of All Places….It’s Las Cruces, New Mexico!”?
It’s the perfect tag line for branding an underrated city with a lot of surprising attractions that I described as “The First, Best, Most and Only’s” of Las Cruces:
- What city hosted the birth of America’s space exploration and missile defense programs?
- Where do you find the best wine in the West, outside of California or Oregon?
- Who grows the most pecans in North America?
- Where can you experience the largest gypsum desert anywhere?
- Where would you climb a national monument with volcanic mountain tops resembling organ pipes?
- What city is considered an international center for astronomy?
- Where was Billy the Kid captured and executed?
Why, of all places, Las Cruces, of course!
Think of the potential and fun in showcasing our own physical and natural assets in a way that differentiates us from anywhere else:
And, believe me, there are plenty more “first, best, most and only’s” for our community and the surrounding region, if we would only capture and package them as selling points for future employers…and employees, not just tourists.
The DK Eyewitness Travel rankings inspired the Las Cruces Bulletin to add to, and in several instances corroborate, my list of what makes us special, including White Sands National Monument and the Organ Mountain Desert Peaks.
“Las Cruces has long been an important tourist base,” the Bulletin also reported. “But these days, attractions within the city itself make a longer stay far more appealing. There’s a lively theatre and arts scene, spectacular year-round golf, and tourist trails that highlight local ale and wine production, and even the humble green chili.”
That newspaper passage would make a great marketing message for a national or even global campaign spotlighting “Of All Places, Las Cruces.” But it’s a campaign that needs to target three audiences, not just travelers. We should target companies and employees, or prospective employees.
Advice to Offer
As I wrote before, this is an opportunity for the Las Cruces Chamber of Commerce and the Mesilla Valley Economic Development Alliance to play a leadership role in creating stronger name recognition for this metro region, and to do so with business, industry and talent recruitment in mind.
I also pointed out a few weeks ago how Las Cruces needs a formal economic development marketing vision, strategy and plan. “Of All Places, Las Cruces” provides the basis for just that.
So this time, I will share my message directly with the Chamber and the Alliance, thanks to a study that, of all things, underrates us!
I will share how, of all places, Las Cruces offers more than meets the eye. We can go toe-to-toe with most any city on key location factors with strengths such as:
- Cost of living and cost of doing business
- Tax rates
- Quality of living
- Innumerable natural attractions
- Healthy, outdoor lifestyles enabled by great weather
- Quality of higher education
- Strategic location at the junction of I-10 and 1-25
- Proximity to the Mexico International Free Trade Zone
- Bilingual local population base
I reported these attributes previously, and will seek to advise on them this time.
For recruitment of large-scale projects like manufacturing plants, distribution centers and corporate regional headquarters, the Mesilla Valley Economic Development Alliance is in control.
My experience with major economic development groups tells me the Alliance needs to step up its game in terms of targeting, pursuing and landing projects offering large employment, capital and tax bases.
The Alliance should go after companies with larger-scale but clean operations like:
- Cisco Systems develops a solar-powered data center
- FedEx or UPS builds a Southwest logistics center
- Capital One needs a bi-lingual regional call center
- Ernst & Young sites a consulting field office to support El Paso and Albuquerque
You don’t always have to be the big dog to win a meaningful corporate presence. But you first must position yourself and then compete on your own merits.
One of those assets should be a larger base of skilled, available workers, which takes time to build.
Plus, it can take more than two years for a corporation to choose a location.
So, what else can be done?
Viable, Small-Scale Alternatives
For the Las Cruces Chamber, which is known more for lobbying than creating jobs, there is a meaningful role awaiting that could expand the Chamber’s impact in solving the jobs and business development challenge. It is a small-scale solution with larger-scale impact.
What types of employers might the Chamber set out to target?
- Mid-cap companies in need of young talent
- Start-up’s with venture capital seeking lower-cost markets
- Alternative energy innovators like solar, biomass and wind
- Distribution operations who see the value of I-10 and I-25
- Professional services like advertising agencies, consultants, engineers, architects
- Specialty doctors, especially cardiologists, rheumatologists, oncologists and more
Consider the retirement and aging demographic of Las Cruces, and one of the challenges becomes an opportunity.
Chamber CEO Debbie Moore regards the shortage of doctors in Las Cruces as a serious gap to close, and she sees the value of what we call “segmented” economic development to attract more physicians to the area.
Think about the effectiveness of tapping this one high-paying professional niche: physician-specialists, along with their support base and supply chain partners.
Realizing this one objective alone would go a long way toward solving ongoing imbalances in older vs. younger people, higher paying jobs, and the brain drain to neighboring states.
Solving the physician shortfall may even present a viable opportunity to turn the fallow country club grounds into the mixed-use medical development it was intended to become.
That requires changing the conversation with the neighbors who oppose the medical park. They were never given a proactive voice in the change process. But an inclusive approach recognizing these home owners as stakeholders could help change the conversation from “not in my back yard,” to “what’s in it for me?”
If we take a balanced view, understand the varying needs and views of different stakeholders, and then account for the strengths listed above, we win!
Regional Unification
Under-utilization of strategic partnerships with local allies is another problem with potential winning outcomes.
These could involve more frequent collaborations between the city, the county and NMSU, as well as multiple interests throughout Don Ana County like the various Chambers of Commerce, the military-industrial sector, science and technology companies, logistics and transportation centers, social agencies, public schools, health care, public safety, the arts, media, or other community stakeholder-employers.
For example, what if more emphasis were placed on fostering incubator and R&D types of start-up enterprises that spin out of NMSU laboratories and field studies into the private sector? These would also incorporate the subject matter expertise of the existing science, technology, industrial and military sectors based here.
Another possibility: there is a strong creative and arts base integrated into the Las Cruces lifestyle. Market the arts as the focal point to a larger creative class that would also contribute to economic growth.
In the process, don’t overlook the local existing industry base with players like ADP, Comcast, Lockheed, Raytheon and Virgin Galactic already doing business and providing jobs here. They reflect a healthy critical mass for others like them who might also locate an operation here.
Richard Kadzis has more than 35 years of experience in economic development marketing and corporate location strategies. In 2014, he authored the book, “Enterprise City: How Companies Are Changing the Global Urban Landscape,” available in Kindle via Amazon.com. He resides in Las Cruces.