A truly fascinating little essay on The Smallest Small Towns of New Mexico, population 25, 4 and 2. It begins:
As of 2007, almost two million people live in New Mexico. Almost 500,000 of these live in Albuquerque. And more than 300,000 live in Las Cruces, Santa Fe, Rio Rancho, Roswell, and Farmington.
As a result of so many people gathered in so few places, these cities have come to provide a near-majority of New Mexicans with their visual definitions of what New Mexico is, and have become the face this state shows the world. Tourists recalling New Mexico likely think of Santa Fe, with its cottonwood-shaded plazas, adobe churches, and stuccoed Wal-Marts. They might picture Kodachrome balloons wafting over downtown Albuquerque and its dusty suburbs. And they probably won’t call to mind the tiny desert towns that freckle the state, that punctuate its roads, and that offer travelers a relief from driving and residents a place to call home.