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Two teenagers about to graduate high school. Wife a teacher. I'm a jack-of-all-trades who's looking to complete the last half of a bachelor's degree I've been piecing together there and there over the years. We could use your esteemed advice on ...really anything you feel like telling us. I've relied on CD before and had an account here, at least a decade ago that I've long forgotten.
Anyhow, pertinent information:
Drove through all three.
The people in P-ville & Clovis were very friendly, talkative. Did seem a bit b/w ? In terms of wealth and poverty with not much in the way of middle class but I really have no idea that's just from spending a few days there. I liked it.
Is flooding really an issue with both the towns I mentioned in E NM?
It's a shame how this pandemic and the housing market has turned this and other places into paranoid sort of places, looking out for investors or something (I am not an investor) but I'll ask this next question anyways...
Is Eastern NM poised to take advantage of rec marijuana tourism from TX?
I've read that there will be "consumption spots" allowed. I myself don't smoke as I'm paranoid enough, heh, but can already imagine a weekend industry popping up between Lubbock, Amarillo and Clovis, etc.
This could be a vitamin shot in the arm for the economy of some local town. Then again, you could see your quaint downtown turned into a seedy strip replete with ..well...an actual strip club or something dreadful, like I saw in Trinidad, CO, but that might not be a good example? I myself would prefer a small town in Eastern NM as opposed to stuck out in an unwalkable, not-very-private suburb...again...like we've been for the last 15 years!
What's up with Google Maps showing a huuuuuge amount of streets being built NW of Rio Rancho?
Rio Rancho has miles of streets laid out in a grid with nothing on them and it has been like that for years. The city has 100k people and will eventually fill in some of that space but not in my lifetime. There are no services out there for the most part. I bought a 1/2 acre lot with all utilities on site except water and sewer. It would need a well and septic system to be buildable. It is in the path of development so I will just hold on to it for a while.
I don't have much experience with Clovis or Portales. People seem to like them from what I hear. The legal cannabis situation is so new that I don't think it is all figured out yet. There have been occasional floods on the Pecos, but I don't know about Clovis or Portales having floods or how bad they are. Portales has the university.
All those dirt streets laid out in Rio Rancho are from its origins as Rio Rancho Estates, which was a fairly shady land sales scheme in the 1960s by the AMREP Corporation, the original developer of the city.
There are various other examples across New Mexico and around metro Albuquerque, including Paradise Hills, North Albuquerque Acres and the Horizon Corporation land in Valencia County.
Decades later all those thousands of parcels that were sold are still mostly a headache in terms of trying to create cohesive development in these areas. Housing developers have often pieced together large plots of land to create subdivisions and master-planned communities, but there are still tons of lots leftover and many owners who refuse to sell.
It's doubtful metro Albuquerque will ever grow fast enough again to gobble up all this land that's leftover from these real estate schemes.
The play and subsequent movie Glengarry Glen Ross mentions Rio Rancho Estates and is about these types of shady land sales. The Rio Rancho Estates in the story is in Arizona or Florida, but it's certain the playwright was inspired by the real-life AMREP saga in Rio Rancho, which saw several of its executives convicted of fraud over the Rio Rancho Estates dealings.
All those dirt streets laid out in Rio Rancho are from its origins as Rio Rancho Estates, which was a fairly shady land sales scheme in the 1960s by the AMREP Corporation, the original developer of the city.
There are various other examples across New Mexico and around metro Albuquerque, including Paradise Hills, North Albuquerque Acres and the Horizon Corporation land in Valencia County.
Decades later all those thousands of parcels that were sold are still mostly a headache in terms of trying to create cohesive development in these areas. Housing developers have often pieced together large plots of land to create subdivisions and master-planned communities, but there are still tons of lots leftover and many owners who refuse to sell.
It's doubtful metro Albuquerque will ever grow fast enough again to gobble up all this land that's leftover from these real estate schemes.
Good summary. I would amend your last sentence a bit, though: Rio Rancho will never fill all that land in. Neither Albuquerque nor Rio Rancho hold rights to enough water to do it, and it's somewhere between unlikely to impossible there'd ever be enough available water rights to buy up in even a theoretical sense. Rio Rancho city planners are known for somewhat unreasonable optimism - as recently as a decade ago they were still talking about becoming "Dallas to Albuquerque's Fort Worth" - but even they've acknowledged developing all those platted acres is never going to happen and adjusted their plans accordingly.
Although I own a home on the west side of Albuquerque I know little about Rio Rancho other that my daughter owned a home off Southern Boulevard a few years ago and that Rio Rancho has had in the past excellent garage and estate sales. I also know little about the city's demographics but, from my "garage saleing" days there, it seems that an inordinate number of its inhabitants moved there from NY State? Nice folks though, usually. Also, I know the city uses unmanned traffic cameras for policing. Don't ask how I know this.
As far as Clovis and Portales, I spent four years at Cannon AFB and once owned a home at Clovis while attending ENMU at Portales for several years. However, this was from 1968 to 1980 so things have changed a lot. A few things I have seen while living in Clovis were tornadoes, thunderstorms, snowstorms, dust storms, dust devils, small and large cattle and horse owners, Norman Petty Recording Studios, a brick main street and a town that ended at North Prince and 21st. I also lived through the 1976 UFO scare at Clovis. Between 1968 and 1980, I never witnessed any floods there.
Portales has much changed since I last graduated from ENMU in 1980 but as far as weather patterns, the same goes for it as well as Clovis. Other things worth mentioning are sandhills, scrub oak trees, the Clovis Man Site (the old Sanders gravel pit) and a good solid education.
I think the soils around Rio Rancho, Portales and Clovis are much too sandy, and too deep, for anything less than than a Noah's era thunderstorm but my preference, if I could do it all over again, would be to settle anywhere in New Mexico away from Albuquerque.
Like Texas, the friendliest and the most helpful people are found on the southern high plains. (I also own a small farm on the Texas South Plains.)
Well how rude. I saw this earlier and apparently never said 'thanks' or followed up. Not sure what happened there.
So: Thanks! Everyone.
It's a shame to hear about Rio Rancho, and wanting to be "Fort Worth to Alb's 'Dallas'" sounds dreadful to me. I dunno. Having grown up in San Antonio and lived in Austin, I've had my fill of booming / fast-growing, large metros. And frankly the types of people that brings in. It's not all it's cracked up to be and anyways I'm older and value comfort over stimulation at this point. Heh.
Quote:
Originally Posted by High_Plains_Retired
Although I own a home on the west side of Albuquerque I know little about Rio Rancho other that my daughter owned a home off Southern Boulevard a few years ago and that Rio Rancho has had in the past excellent garage and estate sales. I also know little about the city's demographics but, from my "garage saleing" days there, it seems that an inordinate number of its inhabitants moved there from NY State? Nice folks though, usually. Also, I know the city uses unmanned traffic cameras for policing. Don't ask how I know this.
As far as Clovis and Portales, I spent four years at Cannon AFB and once owned a home at Clovis while attending ENMU at Portales for several years. However, this was from 1968 to 1980 so things have changed a lot. A few things I have seen while living in Clovis were tornadoes, thunderstorms, snowstorms, dust storms, dust devils, small and large cattle and horse owners, Norman Petty Recording Studios, a brick main street and a town that ended at North Prince and 21st. I also lived through the 1976 UFO scare at Clovis. Between 1968 and 1980, I never witnessed any floods there.
Portales has much changed since I last graduated from ENMU in 1980 but as far as weather patterns, the same goes for it as well as Clovis. Other things worth mentioning are sandhills, scrub oak trees, the Clovis Man Site (the old Sanders gravel pit) and a good solid education.
I think the soils around Rio Rancho, Portales and Clovis are much too sandy, and too deep, for anything less than than a Noah's era thunderstorm but my preference, if I could do it all over again, would be to settle anywhere in New Mexico away from Albuquerque.
Like Texas, the friendliest and the most helpful people are found on the southern high plains. (I also own a small farm on the Texas South Plains.)
Good to hear about the lack of flooding.
Quote:
Originally Posted by High_Plains_Retired
I think the soils around Rio Rancho, Portales and Clovis are much too sandy, and too deep, for anything less than than a Noah's era thunderstorm but my preference,
What did you mean by this?
Quote:
Originally Posted by High_Plains_Retired
if I could do it all over again, would be to settle anywhere in New Mexico away from Albuquerque.
That's my plan, now, as well. We briefly considered living in Espanola and working in Santa Fe...until we saw Espanola's crime rate! Wow. And the lack of a graduate degree college in Santa Fe sealed that deal.
Quote:
Originally Posted by High_Plains_Retired
Like Texas, the friendliest and the most helpful people are found on the southern high plains. (I also own a small farm on the Texas South Plains.)
Ah, good. That's what the kids and I noticed and are hoping for.
We're pretty set on the Clovis / Portales area now. Thanks everyone, for your service here! Much appreciated!
Originally Posted by High_Plains_Retired View Post
I think the soils around Rio Rancho, Portales and Clovis are much too sandy, and too deep, for anything less than than a Noah's era thunderstorm but my preference,
What did you mean by this?
I apologize for my late response to your question but I sometimes forget who I have posted to.
What I meant about the sandy soils is that typically this soil type tends to flood less than than a denser soil type because water can flow through it. Think of a beach wave washing up on sandy beach. Much of the water returns to the ocean underneath the surface of the sandy beach. I'm no soil scientist but I would have to say that most of Rio Rancho is built on river sands washed out from the Rio Grande River.
Clovis and Portales exist on the western side of the South Plains. My Texas farm is on the eastern side and over here we have extremely fine soils (lots of clay) which can hold water if it rains hard enough for a short period of time. In general, the soil composition on the Southern Plains tends to be coarser as you move from east to west. I've always thought this was due to the predominant direction of wind and water erosion across the area but who knows?
In regard to the Clovis/Portales area, (and from my education that is now ancient), the old Brazos River once ran through the Portales Valley some 10,000 to 11,000 years ago leaving much of the current sandy river deposits that you currently see in that region. As you may know, peanuts are a major crop in the Portales area and peanuts require sandy soils.
I was just kidding about a Noah flood event although something close to that sort of rain event might be appreciated right now during our current drought.
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I also know little about the city's demographics but, from my "garage saleing" days there, it seems that an inordinate number of its inhabitants moved there from NY State? Nice folks though, usually. Also, I know the city uses unmanned traffic cameras for policing. Don't ask how I know this. 
Wow. And the lack of a graduate degree college in Santa Fe sealed that deal.
