the lower rio grande valley needs to brand itself as the valleyplex

People have generally heard about Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Fort Worth, El Paso, and Austin, but how many have heard of Donna, Mila Doce, or Rangerville? Most Texans will be familiar with Brownsville, Harlingen, and McAllen, but how many folks outside of Texas have heard of ’em? My guess? Not many. And if they have, they think of them as discrete villages remotely dotting the coastal plains where the Rio Grande empties into the Gulf (when there’s water…).

But they are not discrete; they meet.

When you’re in the valley, as you drive west on Highway 2 from Harlingen, you’d be hard pressed to know where one town ends and another starts until you reach La Joya some 50 miles down the road. If you can bear the site of a few un-Walmarted fields, a drive south out of Harlingen on Highway 69E takes you through San Benito on the way down to Brownsville and then out to South Padre. Again, if you are willing to stomach a few miles of fields between towns, you can continue west out of La Joya on Highway 83 another 40 miles and drive through a dozen small towns ending with Roma. In short, the Lower Rio Grande Valley is a 140-mile long, linear city.

All these cities share a river, a border with Mexico that includes Reynosa and Matamoros, and a mostly brackish Gulf Coast Aquifer (here’s the tenuous groundwater thread…).

Alright. A bunch of small towns along a river. What’s the big deal?

This line of “small” towns includes about 2 million people on the Texas side. You read that right: Two freakin’ million people. Greater El Paso has about 900,000 people. Greater Austin has 2 million people. Greater San Antonio has 2.5 million people. Muleshoe has a mere 5,000 people.

And water planners expect these towns along the Rio Grande to grow to over 4 million people by 2070.

Four.

Million.

People.

Throw in the Mexican side of the river, and the current population of the binational valley tallies up to 3.4 million people, more than half the size of greater Houston. This is not some lazy stretch of river with a sprinkle of podunk towns along its shore; this is a major urban region of massive importance to the state and the country.

I confess: I’m guilty of underestimating the valley. The valley as an urban area first entered my consciousness during the last U.S. House redistricting efforts where areas with 800,000 more people were getting an extra rep. Once of those areas was the Lower Rio Grande Valley. My eyebrows raised when I saw. Say what?

The podunky impressions of many people about the valley are, in part, the fault of the valley itself. Perhaps it’s high school football, civic pride, or preferred taco joints, but valley communities have not joined hands to present themselves as one to the world outside the valley. I propose that the valley refer to itself as The Valleyplex, borrowing that last syllable from the Metroplex, a term that encompasses Dallas, Fort Worth, and the bakers’ dozens of smaller communities in orbit around them.

Some might say that “Lower Rio Grande Valley” or “Rio Grande Valley” already achieves my intent, but I disagree. The word “valley,” a geomorphological term, does not convey what is down there. It sounds pastoral, almost idyllic. I see fluffy sheep, frolicking amidst green pastures, with a shepherd named Wayne Halbert sleeping under a grapefruit tree. Adding a “-plex” to the end of something sounds grittily urban suggesting Chili’s, Motel 6’s, and a half-dozen Home Depots. Yeah, “-plex” might not as readily recognize agriculture in the region, but policymakers in Austin and D.C. are more likely to be moved by 2 million voters and the resulting crisis when they run out of water than agriculture. Regardless, agriculture is likely to benefit along the way. Furthermore, -plex can easily be interpreted to include ag.

The Valley is suffering from serious water issues. Drought and Mexico’s lack of adherence to an international water treaty is causing farms and farm-related businesses to fail and jeopardizing the water resources for 2 million Texans and 3.4 million people in total. At a conference yesterday, I learned that (1) 90 percent of the valley’s water sources from the Rio Grande and (2) the citrus industry is on the verge of collapse due to low inflows and storage in their reservoirs.

Droughts and drought impacts are frequent enough these days to create drought fatigue by the public and policymakers. I hate to say this, but folks are unlikely to be moved to action for a small town and some farmers. Therefore, everyone down there should have the words “Valleyplex,” “2 million Texans,” “3.4 million people,” and “twice as many people in the next 50 years” on the tip of their tongues when they talk about valley issues, water or not. These are not rural issues of minor importance—these are urban issues with profound impacts to Texas, the country, and the world.