Are there still Spaniards in New Mexico?

[Phil P]

One last post on this thread, I'm done after this.

Going back to the spanish point of the thread, obviously they are a root stock of NM, but the reactionary elements that boil out of "cultural preservation" and "going back" usually end up being ugly, just like the pro Onate idiot that shot a protester at the statue site: https://www.abqjournal.com/news/man-...793df8a.html#1.

That's the kinda crap that NM needs to move on from. Lots of ugliness can hide with the good in "preservation".

The 1900s paradigm of railroads, interstates, and corporatism / big business left people unoptimally glumped into major metros and left vast swaths of the US pretty devoid of people. It's an unhealthy and rather unnatural arrangement (literally with Denver's brown cloud) that will change. What happened in the past won't be the way that things develop in the future - it'll be more like it was in the past, a network of small cities rather than big urban and rural. That's bearing out in the post covid population trends, expect more.

The climate and water situation in Taos is BETTER than Colorado Springs, it's most definitely not too cold or arid, this isn't Wyoming. Why do you think there were so many native settlements on the Rio Grande and not at the base of Pikes Peak or in Greeley?? More stuff grows here like fruit trees, less wack snow, less hail, better summers and similar winters... New Mexico is VERY underpopulated relative to what a comfortable carrying capacity is, using somewhere like Pennsylvania as a comparison. If a drought now of similar proportions to the one that created all sorts of upheaval in the 1100s didn't shake the SW, we're definitely not overdeveloped. Literally nothing broke except some farms stopped.

New Mexico is not going to stay frozen in population or culture, no matter how much people (generally over 60) want it to stay that way. It's going to evolve into something new with new generations based off the the roots it came from. We should be involved on it being a good change, but no change is not an option.

[aries63]

^^ You only think Taos isn't too cold because you come from Colorado Springs! A cold city. And Taos is colder. Both are colder than Chicago. Most of the people who move to Taos do so in retirement. It has a large percentage of people over 65. A lot of those retirees will be dying off soon or moving away to be closer to family or better health care, so I predict a decline in population over the next decade or so.

Meanwhile millennials live more in a virtual world and don't tend to put roots down anywhere, they are much more mobile than previous generations and participate less in community activities and organizations. I imagine the trail volunteers where you live, like in Albuquerque, are almost all elderly folks. At least the volunteers I work with are mostly over 70, several are over 80, still able to cut down trees and build trails. I don't know who will replace them when they're gone. I've never met a volunteer under 50.

Most people I've met who move to New Mexico and are impatient with the way things are done (or not done), who want things to change, end up disappointed and move away, if they have no real ties to the community.