At the risk of being a downer, I used to live near El Paso, and it's a pretty straightforward sprawl-ville that is gobbling up the desert as fast as anyone, and its attitude toward the Franklin Mountains park is that of hostility toward the desert being off-limits to sprawl. In a sad irony, the most beautiful Chihuahuan desert in America lies just east, via US 62, by which one must first endure some of the most horrific combined sprawl, oil and gas infrastructure, and "locally unwanted land uses" that one can find.