The Creation of an Economy: Taos, New Mexico. Let's get creative. (Albuquerque: transplants, construction)
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Something a little different. So Taos has not much of an economy to inhibit or stabilize any type of growth, I have visited the town and asked around about what people thought were the "big companies/business" that rake in money. Most responses were well restaurants/tourism/construction(which I was pretty surprised about) and the biotecture business. I've talked with the higher ups in the earthship business and they said the head Architect/owner of Earthships had a successful point collecting biofuel from Taos except ironically enough there isn't enough waste to collect from restaurants in Taos and shipping that from say Santa Fe or other areas wouldn't be cost effective.
I'm wondering, what type of economy could you see Taos developing for stability or growth? Granted this won't be something that will happen just a time to think of what Taos has to offer and what type of economy could utilize this, for-go any mindless arguments. So what do you think?
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Taos is still a small town along with a tourist destination so I don't really see it getting any large industries other than the creative ones dependent on tourism. That said the solar industry could thrive all over New Mexico, but the oil and gas companies along wth foreign competition keep it down.
Taos is still a small town along with a tourist destination so I don't really see it getting any large industries other than the creative ones dependent on tourism. That said the solar industry could thrive all over New Mexico,
How could it thrive? You need either sub-minimum wage labor, large factory complexes, and either transportation infrastructure like seaports to get the raw materials cheaply, or ultra-expensive energy, or ideally both.
New Mexico doesn't have much of those. We get lots of sun but then so does much of the rest of the country.
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but the oil and gas companies along wth foreign competition keep it down.
I fail to see how oil and gas companies keep the solar industry down. Oil goes into transportation and solar doesn't (yet). If we want to power our grid with solar, we need something for cloudy days and nights and gas is pretty much it, so it can be argued that cheap/competitive gas helps, not hurts.
I think a much easier case can be made that our military-industrial complex keeps solar down by subsidizing foreign energy supplies while pulling resources from energy research and development and jobs/training programs, and that is a much bigger reason solar is being kept down.
But really, by a number of measures, solar is taking off and doing quite well in this state; we're just not very competitive at making the panels themselves. We're easily #1 in solar racking manufacture nationwide (using materials imported from out-of-state).
Getting back to Taos, you have no rail, no freeway, little higher education. That's how a lot of people like it. Rather than making Taos into Albuquerque perhaps it'd be wiser to make Taos a better Taos and Albuquerque a better Albuquerque.
We don't want growth in Taos; there's been enough growth over the years.
Here is why Taos does not advance past Tourism, the typical nimby attitude from the 'transplants'. Natives never have a say, in anything.
I have family in Northern New Mexico, and as much as I don't like Espanola, it's done a heck of a better job attracting jobs than that of Taos. A larger Walmart, a Lowe's, and a CVS all within the same area. And there are talks of a Super Target for them. Sure they are retail jobs, but i'm sure Taos could use more jobs in that field.
As an outsider I might suggest that a way to make "Taos a better Taos" is to teach the kids how to make the art that makes Taos so famous. I do not see any major manufacturing locating in the town but there may be an opportunity for a highly creative design consultant/prototype shop in the area that could attract the very best engineering/design talent just because of the location. I could see a future space craft designer/builder working in Taos.
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