I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
It sounds like something you’d read in a history book: a community with no running water and no electricity; residents who carry water to wash dishes and take showers; unnamed dirt roads instead of paved thoroughfares that residents use.
And yet there Pajarito Mesa sits, on the ridge overlooking a modern American city; in this case, Albuquerque. The community’s plight was enough to draw the interest of the New York Times, which profiled Pajarito Mesa in today’s paper.
The story is a quick read, and it’s very interesting. I’ve heard a little about Pajarito Mesa since moving to New Mexico in 2005, but I’ve not read a lot about the community itself. There have been occasional news stories about how difficult living is and a recent task force empaneled to examine those difficulties.
The community of about 400 families is spread across 28 square miles, with the vast majority of its residents Hispanics and poor, the Times tells us. Pajarito Mesa is one of the largest communities in the U.S. to live off the grid, as it were, along with communities along the Mexican border, the paper adds.
The Times notes that there have been improvements to life on the mesa:
In a small step forward, this month the mesa will finally get its first water supply — a metered spigot at a single site where people can fill their barrels, instead of having to drive anywhere from 10 to 18 miles.
