ABSTRACT
The seven Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas (SMSAs) shown in Table 1 account for over 90 percent of the total population in U.S. border counties. All of these SMSAs grew more rapidly during the 1970s than during the 1960s. El Paso, which had the lowest 1970-1980 border SMSA population growth rate, still grew at over three times the corresponding national rate of 11 percent, and by well over the respective rates for the relatively rapidly growing South and West. McAllen's 56 percent rate of growth was five times that of the United States, and Tucson and Brownsville grew almost as rapidly. Of the 272 SMSAs that were officially defined as of 1980, McAllen ranked eleventh in terms of growth during the 1970s; Tucson ranked fifteenth, and Brownsville eighteenth. Moreover, in five of the seven border SMSAs, per capita personal income growth between 1975 and 1979 exceeded the corresponding rates for the South, the West, and the United States as a whole. The contiguous El Paso and Las Cruces SMSAs were the only exceptions.
