Mrs Seven and myself are considering moving and the idea of New Mexico came up. I know NOTHING about New Mexico.
I spent some time looking up websites on the topic, but Chamber of Commerce and Visitor Center websites don’t tell you if a town is filled with idiots or fruitcakes (not a big selling point I guess) So I thought I’d start a thread to learn from any locals who might have lived there are currently do.
Since you are asking for opinions… Here in NM its known as “The fruit and nut capital of the Southwest”. As far as I’m concerned, many of the people who live there try way too hard to live up to the name “the city different”. Santa Fe is completely overrated. NM has a lot to offer that is much better than Santa Fe.
I’m not local, and I’ve only been to Santa Fe once, but my impressions of the city were very memorable.
First, it’s an absolutely gorgeous part of NM. Mountains, beautiful views everywhere. For this reason lots of artists live there and there are hundreds of art galleries and unique shops all over town. It’s a very old settlement and there is a cool Indian trade market every morning, I think. There are ski resorts nearby and great restaurants. I think the cost of living is a little steep, but it is a wonderful place. Lots of “adobe” style architecture all over the city. I can’t wait to go back!!!
Fruit and Nut Capitol. HA HA.
Is there a town or city in New Mexico that might be better to look at?
I hated Las Cruces, and my friend who moved there from Santa Fe thought it was a step up. She said Santa Fe was expensive, and full of New Age nuts, plus the old yokels who’d lived there for the past century.
Don’t know where you’re from, but it was hard to adjust to not having the culture/amenities a major city like Seattle, Portland, or San Francisco offers within a reasonable distance.
I like Bakersfield better, if that means anything to you. 
FWIW, Douglas Adams liked Santa Fe the best of all US cities, according to his last book The Salmon of Doubt.
Seven,
Its hard to give you a direction without knowing anything about where you are coming from and what you are looking for. My thoughts about Santa Fe are just exactly that, my thoughts. It might be just what you are looking for. I personally like the smaller towns such as Ruidoso, Capitan, Lincoln, Red River if you like the mountains. Clovis/Portales on the eastern side of the state aren’t bad for small towns. I like Las Cruces, as far as large towns go, just fine but it tends to get hot there in the summer time. My opinion of Albuquerque is equal to that of Santa Fe. I hope this helps.
I have spent several weeks at different occasions visiting my brother-in-law and his family who live in Santa Fe. A great place to visit but a challenging place to reside unless you have a lot of money for a long time. The area is stunningly beautiful, the weather varied enough, the urbane consumer pleasures are generally plentiful (except for professional sports, and the lack of an airport). As I tourist, I felt I was exceptionally well treated by the local service industry–almost the quality of New Orleans, which I feel is the best service in the USA. The quality of the art market is also outstanding.
Living there, however, would not be my desire. The local schools are mediocre–let’s face it, most New Mexico is a third world state. Very wealthy folks have moved in over the past 15 years. This has raised property values incredibly, yet wages remain dismal at best (and the wealthy folks don’t have to worry about work in Santa Fe at least). If you are a successful artist with established clientele and markets elsewhere, then you could live in Santa Fe just fine. If you are a wannabe, and there are gobs of those there, you will go broke.
I have to agree with prior posters, this is one of the new age meccas–it seems like there are energy healers, psychic artists, and trust fund kiddies on every corner and they seem to shuttle between Sante Fe and Sedona perpetually. That gets old fast.
For more objective information about New Mexico, go to the US government website and do searches on the quality of life indicators that are important to you. Also research the weather and check out the major newspapers from there over a month’s time, including the classifieds. That will give you big clues.
I grew up in Albuquerque.
Santa Fe is pretty nice in terms of the arts, recreation (if you like outdoor rec stuff) and just general scenery. It is about as snobby and as hippie as NM gets at the same time.
It all depends on what you want. If you want a city, well, Santa Fe isn’t very big, but Albuq. is only 1 hour south (45" if you drive fast) and even that hardly counts as a city. so if you want metropolitan, NM is not the place for you.
There are plenty of great little towns in the mountains surrounding Santa Fe and in the area. Glorieta and Pecos come to mind. Pretty. Espanola, not so much (unless you’re a big fan of lowrider cars). Generally, the state gets prettier as you go north.
It’s all going to depend on work isn’t it? What do you do?
If you have finanicial means, I’d recommend Santa Fe for a nice balance of small town, arts, leisure, etc. If you need work, Alb. is better while still offering access to mountains. If you just want small town appeal, travel north along mountain highways and just pull off somewhere.
I agree with carl about Red river, Ruidoso etc. BUT I have to staunchly disagree about the likes of Portales/Clovis. WAAAAY too close to Texas in terms of people, culture, and smell of horseshit.
I worked in Santa Fe for the better part of 9 months, and have since visited friends that I met while working out there. First off, I love Santa Fe and have considered it as a possible place to retire (although that’s still a ways off, unfortunately).
I agree with most of what Geoduck says. It is a strange mix of long time (many generations) locals, new agers, rich people, and artists. I dealt mostly with the long time locals, and I can say they were the nicest, warmest people I’ve met. What I seemed to pick up on was that these different groups co-exist pretty reasonably with not that much animosity (again, this is my observation). That is, there wasn’t a lot of friction between all these groups.
The area is beautiful, and if you’re into hiking and backpacking, there is lots to choose from. Northern New Mexico also has a very “unspoiled” feel to it: a lot of seemingly open range - not all covered with ranches or farmland.
I would mention the weather, though. The one thing that I never got used to during my stay was how dry the air is - especially in the winter. Not only does your skin scale up, but getting a static shock all the time gets really old. The locals all take it in stride, but I never got the hang of it.
In the summer, they get nice thundershowers and some really spectacular clouds. There’s a reason why so many of the artists paint all those sunsets.
It depends on what you’re looking for, but what appealed to me was that SF had this “small town” feel to it. It isn’t a big city to begin with - far smaller than Albuquerque. But just the feel of the city was of a small town.
I love New Mexico - Hubby is from there, and much of his family and friends still live there. And we go home often! We’re planning on moving back there when we retire.
Sante Fe is lovely, but tends to be rather touristy. I have several friends who are in state government there, and all of them live out of town.
Albuquerque is bigger. But still touristy. My mother-in-law lives in NE New Mexico, and goes to Amarillo more often than not for big purchaces.
Las Cruces. I love Las Cruces. Good College town and just beautiful.
The rest of the state tends to be very rural. Mom is about 45 miles from the nearest Wal-mart. And she lives in a town.
And what else can I say about a state with Blake’s LottaBurger??
I spent all of one full day and two nights in various parts of New Mexico, including about an hour in Albequerque and an hour in Santa Fe. One of my good friends grew up in Santa Fe, and although she misses some things about it, she vastly prefers the Bay Area for many reasons.
I found New Mexico to be beautiful, and Santa Fe in particular. However, it seemed to me that one would either have to be independently wealthy or an established artist to be able to live there (Taos even more so than Santa Fe). I think a regular Joe could do OK in Albequerque. Some of the poorer areas of the state were interesting, too. We spent the first night just over the border from AZ, in Gallup. Had some of the best food ever! mmmm, Navajo tacos…
However, one of the worst places ever was Espanola. Extraordinarly poorly designed city and highway system. We got stuck there for a half hour trying to get to Taos from Santa Fe. Ugh. My bf and I called it “Suckburgh.”
never going back to Suckburgh,
mle
I was born and raised in Santa Fe, New Mexico. While it was always home to me, it’s changed a lot, and not necessarily for the better. I moved away because the occupational choices afforded were either A) work in the tourist industry, something that is predominantly service jobs or B) Government work, as SF is the state capitol. It’s also the 3rd largest art market in the nation, but that provides fewer jobs than you might imagine.
One of the ways in which SF has definitely changed for the worse is that the middle class is disappearing. Lots and Lots of people are moving in from NY, NJ and California. This has been going on since the 1960’s it is not a new trend, but it was exacerbated by the Santa Fe style craze during the mid 1980’s.
Carl’s fruit & nut commentary strikes me as a GLBT slur. Santa Fe has a very old and vibrant Gay & Lesbian community. There is quite a bit of New Age Hokum though, that I will grant you, as well as a healthy Hippy community.
I still enjoy going back to Santa Fe. I find that for a city of it’s size it’s got the biggest concentration of big city amenities I’ve ever seen. It has world class fine arts, spectacular scenery and lots of outdoor activity opportunities.
It’s the only city that has any kind of liberal politics. The rest of the state is hopelessly conservative.
That’s all I can think of for now. Did you have any specific questions?
Hey, I’m going to Santa Fe at the end of next month. Be there for five days. Any local Dopers want to meet up?
My in-laws have a home in Santa Fe. I regularly go to visit Santa Fe in the summer or at Christmas.
I really love Santa Fe. It is a wonderful town. That said, I don’t know if I would want to live there. I think the Geoduck and White Ink are right on target with their assesments.
I grew up in El Paso, so I am also familiar with Las Cruces. It’s a nice town, too. It is not, however, as ‘posh’ or ‘New agey’ as Santa Fe.
I have a widowed sister in law in Santa Fe, and a brother and his wife in Albuquerque. Been driving down to New Mexico for years and years.
New Mexico is breathtakingly beautiful. greck, Geoduck, deVena, cormac and White Ink have pretty much described things as I see them.
Santa Fe has plenty going for it culturally: the huge Indian Market in September, the Opera in July, fantastic galleries 12 months a year, restaurants, etc. Plenty to do for outdoorsy types, as well.
There is indeed a long-established gay population, and my sister in law says that all the cute guys in town are either gay or already married. She sent her daughter to private schools.
In Albuquerque, the arid climate is starting to get to my Brit sister in law–summers can be like living in a furnace–but they love where they live and have no serious plans to leave.
Another area you might consider is southern Colorado. Durango is a college town in a gorgeous part of the state.
considering the same move from new jersey,i could possibly transfer and work out of albuequerqe,but would like to live in a small beautiful area,with friendly people,away from that area,if you live in new mexico,and could live in any area you chose,what would it be…?