Does New Mexico have more than it's fair share of...um...*unique* individuals? (Las Cruces: for sale, purchase)

[desert sun]

Originally Posted by mortimer

I don't think that video is from the Earthship community outside of Taos.

Those people are more hippies and think they are saving the Earth by tearing up thousands of acres of virgin desert.

The video showed a bunch of people shooting sawed-off shotguns into stuff and blowing it up.

It could be Meadow Lakes for all I know.

the video is not from the earthship communities, its an area 25 miles from Taos.

[RamblinRoseRanch]

Originally Posted by desert sun

no, all the guys I work with are carbon copies of each other,seriously, they all think alike and think everyone else is wrong and everything they do is right.

And you keep the homicidal ideations at bay how?

[hyw60 -kid]

I wonder what would be considered our "fair share" of ...*unique* individuals" ???

[nmnita]

Originally Posted by brubaker

Someone I knows says that, in her experience, New Mexico is a *very* unique
place as it's mostly deserted and there are some very bizarre cultural bubbles
going on that no one hears about.

Also lots of rednecks that fear the government and believe 'the greys' have taken over already.

Y'know...that type.

I'm not judging...'redneck' is not a bad word to me.

Just asking.
What's your opinion?

Bull, are there some wierdos in NM? Sure, just like every state..Rednecks, really nothing like many other states. I hardly would say the state is deserted, it is growing with leaps and bounds. I think your friend is looking at all the open land because NM is just starting to attract people. If it were deserted the population would be decreasing not increasing..

Nita

[nmnita]

Originally Posted by mike0421

I have a couple of observations regarding this matter, and they likely won't be popular ones. Hell, they might not even be correct. The first is that one of the MAJOR differences between here and where I lived on the east coast is the amount of transient people (some call them 'bums' or 'homeless') that are visible in almost every area of almost every neighborhood in the city I live in (Las Cruces). A case can be made that since Las Cruces is in fact, a 'city', such is to be expected. However, I've noticed similar population in a town half the size (Alamogordo) as well as even smaller population centers, such as Deming. If you live in the Mid-Atlantic or New England regions, you just don't see this, it's limited to inner cities, and even there, it's not nearly as pronounced. To be fair, I just returned from Portland Oregon, and saw this everywhere in Portland as well. I've been to San Diego and all around California, and notice this as well. Therefore, I wonder if this condition is more common as you enter into the Mountain West and West Coast states.

The other observation I have is there seems to be a very 'thin' middle class in this state, or less conventional nuclear families, than what I remember back east. I am talking about a stable, two parent household, with 2 or 3 children, employed or engaged in specialized strains of economic activity. (examples: IT, biotechnology, finance) What you have here is many more couples living together, not necessarily married, or many more couples who do not have children. How many, for instance, who post here, have children? How many in other C-D state forums have children, in comparison? I might be off in this observation, but that is my perception. There seems to be two disparate classes: 1) permanent underclass and 2) upper and upper-middle class, who have largely relocated from other areas, taking their earned money with them. I have a suspicion there is a greater % of middle class around the ABQ area than here, but still much less than a city of comparable size (for example, Kansas City or Cleveland). I think such variables go a long way in explaining why New Mexico is the 6th poorest state in the country, when it comes to per capita income.

Lack of middle class? Yes, you are quite correct, but that is and will continue to change in the next decade I think. In the early 2000s (this could still be the case) the richest and the poorest counties were both in NM>

Nita

[desert sun]

Originally Posted by nmnita

Bull, are there some wierdos in NM? Sure, just like every state..Rednecks, really nothing like many other states. I hardly would say the state is deserted, it is growing with leaps and bounds. I think your friend is looking at all the open land because NM is just starting to attract people. If it were deserted the population would be decreasing not increasing..

Nita

I guess it could kinda be considered deserted considering the population to a state as large as NM, most of the state is actually very rural with a good distance between towns, maybe thats what she means.

[nmnita]

Originally Posted by desert sun

I guess it could kinda be considered deserted considering the population to a state as large as NM, most of the state is actually very rural with a good distance between towns, maybe thats what she means.

You are probably right, but deserted isn't quite what I would say, more like, under developed. Because of the state size it would take a major population growth in the next 50 years to make it look lived in..

[mike0421]

Originally Posted by nmnita

You are probably right, but deserted isn't quite what I would say, more like, under developed. Because of the state size it would take a major population growth in the next 50 years to make it look lived in..

I was in Portland Oregon for 5 days earlier in the month, and flew out of ABQ to get there. I live in LC. I guess I got used to being in a more populated place, because driving back from ABQ down I-25, my wife and I were just looking around the landscape as we made our descent south, and were saying to each other: "My god, how incredibly empty this state really is". When you think about it I-25 is one of three major arteries, and the one that roughly parallels the Rio Grande, so the major ribbon of population in this state is contained along this road. Nonetheless, when you consider that I-25 connects the largest and the second largest city in New Mexico, think of what lies in between:

Dona Ana: pop 1379
Radium Springs: pop 1518
Hatch: pop 1673
Truth or Consequences: pop 7289
Williamsburg: pop 527
Socorro: pop 8877
Belen: pop 6901
Meadow Lake: pop 4491
Los Lunas: pop 10034
Bosque Farms: pop 3931

This is a total of 46080 people. Put in another way, if these towns combined their populations, they would not qualify as a metropolitan statistical area per the U.S. census. And again, keep in mind that these towns are along water sources, in the form of the Rio Grande. It's akin to population Egypt along the Nile. These towns are spread out over 225 miles, the distance that links Albquerque to Las Cruces. When you think about our sparse population density in these terms, it really is hard to ponder. And it gets even more desolate when you drive further east or west from the Rio Grande. Has anyone driven on U.S. rt 60 for instace, east to west, or U.S. 385, east to west in this state? I once drove across 385 from Socorro to Carrizozo, 70 miles (or the length of New Jersey) and saw one car going in the opposite direction for the entire drive. Granted, it was at midnight, but it's still pretty amazing to consider.

[hyw60 -kid]

Originally Posted by desert sun

I guess it could kinda be considered deserted considering the population to a state as large as NM, most of the state is actually very rural with a good distance between towns, maybe thats what she means.

I personally like New Mexico being deserted for Loonnggg stretches at a time, There's nothing wrong with a hundred mile empty space between settlements. and the out of state people that have begun to 'notice' our state can pile up in Albuquerque, Las Cruses, Roswell, Santa Fe etc... ifwe have to have them big city folks here , starting out gushing about 'how tired they are of the smelly ole big cities only to turn around within months and start fussing about how 'backward' New Mexico is and how 'the natives' wouldn't make it in the real world a week ya da ya da ya da then piled up in some little boring city somewhere in New Mexico is just fine and dandy. IMHO

[NCN]

Originally Posted by brubaker

Someone I knows says that, in her experience, New Mexico is a *very* unique
place as it's mostly deserted and there are some very bizarre cultural bubbles
going on that no one hears about.

Also lots of rednecks that fear the government and believe 'the greys' have taken over already.

Y'know...that type.

I'm not judging...'redneck' is not a bad word to me.

Just asking.
What's your opinion?

I found New Mexico to be very refreshing and met many intelligent people there. My impression was good. They need more identifying road signs though. We came to a dead end and there were no signs telling us where to go. We had to use the map and guess. We made it through the town, but not without stress.