Relocating to Los Alamos area (Albuquerque, Santa Fe: new construction, salaries, living in)

[jb124]

So it looks like my job is taking me to LLNL for at least 6 months, probably longer, in the next month or two. I have some questions about the area if anyone has answers please.

Do most people who work at LLNL live in Los Alamos or do many commute? If the latter, where are some of the areas outside of Los Alamos that people commute from? I have a map from visit.losalamos.com that shows a bunch of surrounding towns, but I have no idea about what they have to offer.

Also, I'm very spoiled in where I live now in that I can walk to restaurants, bars, shops (even a mall), commuter rail, busses, etc. Are there places like that in Los Alamos or one of the areas people commute from? I assume there are places like that in ABQ or Santa Fe, but I'm not thrilled about the potential of an hour or two commute each way.

Any general tips about LLNL and surrounding areas would be appreciated too.

Thanks!

[GregW]

IIRC most of the people working at the Lab with good salaries live in White Rock. The people without good salaries live in Espanola. At least this was the case when I interviewed there many years ago. Wish that project hadn't been canceled.

[Zoidberg]

FYI, LLNL is Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, located in Livermore, CA.

LANL is the abbreviation I think you mean.

Living in Los Alamos is very difficult to do; housing prices are the highest in the state, and new construction in the town is tightly controlled, probably more so than anywhere else in the state. Visiting LA may give you an idea of why they like to keep it the way it is. There is definitely no place like it.

Of the LANL employees, I'd guess 40% live in LA, 20% live in White Rock (the only other town in Los Alamos county and essentially a bedroom community for LA), 30% live in Santa Fe, Espanola, or in between, and the remainder commute from places like Rio Rancho or Albuquerque (yes, 2+ hours each way each day).

There's probably bus service from SF and ABQ, but no data on it. Los Alamos has gotten significantly better in terms of places to eat, etc., in the past 20 years, but it doesn't have a haute culture as one might expect in an area with that much money. Santa Fe is less than an hour away, and that serves most of that need. Los Alamos is more 1950's than anyplace else in NM.

[jb124]

Err, yeah, I meant LANL. The job was originally pitched to me as being in LLNL so I still swap the labels now and then.

I did find a commuter bus system from Santa Fe and Espanola to Los Alamos: http://www.allaboardamerica.com/santafe/index.html

I figure what I'll do is get some sort of temp housing in Los Alamos proper for the first couple of weeks then see where the people I identify with most at work live and check it out.


Thanks for the info folks!