Reply #62: TERRIBLE!

[abqmufc]

Live in Albuquerque for over 7 years now (been unemployed over 6 months), moved for work (from Tucson, originally from IL).

NM ranks near the worst in all the catagories you don't want - poverty, highest heroin addiction rate per capita, worst education, etc.

A doctor (and lifetime resident of ABQ) once said to me that NM politicians work on keeping the population poor and under educated b/c they have figured out how to make the state work off of federal funding for such programs....I tend to believe it these days.

We have a very conservative state government taking over who will be pro oil and natural gas and are willing to suspend the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act is they can figure out how to do it as it will benefit those who helped get them elected.

NM is a state that is stuck somewhere between "the Old West" and "new agers". It gets annoying quickly to see how much Santa Fe has changed into a land for the rich. Most State employees have to commute from ABQ daily b/c home prices in Santa Fe are no longer affordable for the middle class (and you can forget about Taos).

We were the last the feel the economic woes and will be the last to recover - this state is still posting high levels of unemployment.

I see NM going one of two ways and neither of them are positive. One, NM will become the energy whore for the USA. It will be a place where we mine our resources for energy and do little to protect the environment and what little water we have. Two, NM will look like AZ with 100s of gated retirement communities who are exempt from property tax (and thus really hurt the economy and public services).

The weather is great and the open space and public land is what has kept me here for so long.

I'll miss the green and red chillie when I move. But this is one NM who is desperately attempting to leave.