The Rio Grande Valley is one of the fastest-growing regions in Texas, with its population expected to double by 2045. It is home to three of the ten U.S. metro areas with the highest share of Latino-owned employer businesses—McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, Brownsville-Harlingen, and Rio Grande City-Roma. By any measure, this is a region on the rise.
But growth without proper investment is not prosperity—it is pressure. And for the tens of thousands of Valley residents living in colonias, that pressure has been building for decades.
In a new Brookings Institution report co-authored with Brookings Fellow Tonantzin Carmona, we document just how deep that pressure runs. There are roughly 2,400 colonias along the U.S.–Mexico border. Texas accounts for about 1,800 of them, and approximately 1,200 are concentrated right here in the Rio Grande Valley, home to an estimated 188,000 residents— although that number is believed to be much higher.
Poverty rates hover around 27 percent—close to double the state rate. Median household incomes run more than $31,000 below the state average. Unemployment sits at 7.4 percent. Yet colonias are not distant rural settlements, as they are often portrayed. They are our neighbors, our workforce, our constituents.
The demographics make their exclusion even harder to justify. The median age in colonias is 30—nine years younger than the national median. These are young, multigenerational communities, yet neither the regional economy nor the education system is reaching them.
An estimated 37 percent of colonia adults lack a high school diploma—roughly three times both the state and national rates. Nearly two-thirds have not progressed beyond secondary schooling. Only 13 percent of residents have a bachelor’s degree or higher.
A region this young, with this much potential, cannot absorb another generation of underinvestment. That is a governance failure, and governance is where the fix has to start.
Because colonias lie outside municipal boundaries, counties—Hidalgo, Cameron, Starr, and Willacy—bear primary responsibility for infrastructure and service delivery. Regional planning bodies exist, but they have their limits. The Lower Rio Grande Valley Development Council coordinates across much of the region, but as a voluntary body rather than a binding compact, it cannot compel unified action—and Starr County, home to 256 colonias, falls outside its primary jurisdiction entirely. As such, counties have continued to operate independently, with separate plans and limited coordination.
The result is a region that cannot—and does not—move as one.
The state of Texas receives $6 to $7 million annually through the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s CDBG allocated colonia set-aside funds. Yet Hidalgo and Cameron counties together drew just $4.2 million over the entire 2014–2023 period—funding they were eligible for but did not fully pursue, reflecting the administrative and capacity barriers required to compete for and manage these grants.
The window to act is narrowing. As Hidalgo County approaches a population of one million, it risks losing access to HUD's CDBG colonia set-aside program entirely—not because conditions have improved, but because the program's eligibility threshold was never designed to scale with a growing county.
What the Valley needs is a formal inter-county compact among all four counties to coordinate infrastructure priorities, align capital planning, and jointly pursue state and federal funding. Central to this regional compact must be a shared database—a common picture of who lives in colonias and where conditions are most acute—that feeds directly into a joint project development hub, giving counties the capacity to move colonia infrastructure from eligibility to implementation. Even when communities qualify for funding, many lack the technical capacity to develop fundable projects; a compact could close that gap
Not another study. Not another task force. A durable institutional commitment—one that builds on the coordination infrastructure the region already has, rather than repeating the cycle of reports that precede inaction.
This is not just a moral argument—it is a practical one.
The Valley has proven it can organize when the stakes are high enough. Colonia infrastructure deserves the same resolve.
Our region cannot build its future on a foundation that leaves so many of its own residents falling through the cracks. A regional compact is not the only solution, but it is a necessary first step— not just to address a regional problem, but to set an example for a national one. And it is a step that county commissioners and regional planning bodies can take now, without waiting for Austin or Washington to make our region a priority.
The Valley is growing. The question is how we ensure everyone grows with it.
Editor's Note: Read the full analysis at the Brookings Institution: "As Border Enforcement Expands, 'Colonia' Communities Are Left Without Basic Infrastructure."
Editor’s Note: The above guest column was penned by Andrik Gonzalez, a regional policy analyst focused on advancing solutions that strengthen quality of life in Rio Grande Valley region. He can be reached at: gonzalezandrik01@outlook.com
