New Mexico Nesties
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
living in NM
We're looking to get out of New England and NM is one of the nicest places we've been. We went to Albuquerque up to Santa Fe and surroundings and loved it.
How do you like living there?
What's a good area to look into? We're looking for a nice, yet affordable place ...not too touristy but not completely secluded in the dust.
Overall thoughts?
How do you like living there?
What's a good area to look into? We're looking for a nice, yet affordable place ...not too touristy but not completely secluded in the dust.
Overall thoughts?
Re: living in NM
I LOVE New Mexico. But it is a perfect fit for me and my DH.
NM is pretty rural on the whole. The most populated area is the Albuquerque (ABQ) / Rio Rancho (RR) metro area - 45% of the population with 800,000 people. Las Cruces has 10% of the state's population, Santa Fe 8% and Farmington 7%. There are lots of small towns - Las Vegas, Carlsbad, Taos, Silver City, Grants, Socorro, TorC, Los Alamos, and Raton come to mind - and lots of place that are more villages.
Affordability in NM is a trick question sometimes. One of the more common things I have heard recently is a spoof on the state nickname, changing "Land of Enchanment" into "Land of Entrapment." There are good paying jobs in the state - but they can be few and far between and require pretty specific degrees and skill sets. Lots of people move to NM because it's so magical, mystic, beautiful, etc. They look at COL calculaors and think, "Hey, I can afford a $300k house. That's cheaper than where I am now." And then they move out here and discover they can't find a job that pays more than $30k. It's one of reasons so many folks live in ABQ - more job opportunities in a larger number of fields. Santa Fe is not affordable to the general population anymore - 50% of the people who live in SF (which is government or tourism based) commute 30 minutes or more from ABQ/RR, Espanola, Las Vegas, Pecos, etc. (I'm one of those commuters.) And Los Alamos is more expensive than SF (although LANL pays well, if you manage not to get laid off and have a MS/PhD.) NM is a poor state economically - we usually end up on the lists you don't want to be on (bottom in education, high poverty, etc.)
Even with all that, I LOVE this state. It suits me. I'm an urbanite so ABQ is perfect for me - great theater and music scene, eclectic mix of modern art galleries, great museums, amazing open spaces, walkable (if you live in certain neighborhoods), lots of local farms in the Bosque, National Forest with great hiking to the east, National Park in the middle of the city, great bike trails, public transportation, eclectic mix of cultures, etc. And I'm a geologist/hydrologist by training, so living where the rocks are is what I always wanted.
What do you and your DH want in a town?
What you don't know is I deal with statewide stats at work all the time. I have to know where big cities are, what's growing, what's shrinking, etc. Plus, I drive around the whole state for work. If there is an obscure small town, I've probably been there. Or at leat gone through it.
BritniLeeigh-
There was a great article in the Daily Lobo (UNM's daily paper) on the expanse of NM that covers the cultural differences pretty well. It's a good overview http://www.mystrangenewmexico.com/the-columns/2007/7/23/fifth-largest-state-of-mind.html
I live n Los Alamos, that expensive town Flame mentioned. Right now the lab isn't doing to much hiring though. I really enjoy the small town, Abq would be to big for me. Where you want to live really depends on what type of jobs you are looking for....
Claire
I'm a transpant too, from Pittsburgh, PA. And I really really like it here. In my job....I'm an x-ray tech they actually pay better here than in PA.
We moved here 3 yrs ago and have liked it. We are thinking of moving back to PA only because we miss our family and friends. I will really miss living here if we do move back.
flame of course does the best job at answering your questions about where to live and such. But my house may be for sale....and it's nice. Hee hee.
I like it because ABQ is such a navigable city. once you learn how the streets work, it is easy to find anything. Yes the commute from and to the West side of the city can be a haul. But I've never had a problem with it. Like a previous poster mentioned, gives you some alone time.