The Las Cruces Sun-News began on Sunday a five-part series examining the community’s rapid growth. The first two articles have been well-written, and the series appears to be a comprehensive look at the controversial topic.
It comes in advance of next week’s vote by the Las Cruces City Council on whether to approve The Vistas at Presidio.
On Sunday, the Sun-News ran an article looking at the bigger picture of growth – what’s happening and why, and whether the growth is good. Today, the newspaper examined the question of whether there’s enough water to sustain the city’s expansion.
A couple of points stood out to me.
Government services must keep up with growth
In Sunday’s article, a couple of numbers emphasized the city’s struggle to keep up with the change. More than 21 percent of
This reveals a difficult problem: Many low-income people live outside the city because they can’t afford to live in it. That means they’re often in substandard housing and lack basic assistance they would receive in the city, such as public transportation, which would make it easier to find work and access health care and education.
Those numbers, in my mind, illustrate why severe child abuse, which left seven children dead in Doña Ana County a few years ago, is generally a greater problem in the communities around Las Cruces than it is inside the city limits. Low-income people in those areas, in general, have more stress because they have less assistance and it’s harder for them to rise above their poverty.
I remember sitting down with District Attorney Susana Martinez in 2005 to discuss the child abuse deaths, and listening to her describe most of the homes where the children were killed as she showed me pictures: dirty clothes and dishes in piles all over the place, broken toilets, animal feces on the floors and other signs of families that were overwhelmed to the point that they couldn’t take care of basic needs. It’s usually desperate people in desperate situations who end up killing their children.
The reality is that child killers must be jailed, but the problem of severe child abuse must be dealt with in a comprehensive way that includes increasing affordable housing and other services. As the area grows, this is becoming increasingly difficult but also more important.
Urban development will replace agriculture
Today’s article illustrated a basic truth playing out across the West: Urban growth is going to replace agriculture. The
The main factor that leads to such a shift is water. The state engineer is appropriating no new rights around here. Water for urban development comes at the expense of agriculture. In many instances, farmers can make more selling their land and water rights than they can by farming, so they get out of the business, and their chile crops are replaced by walled-in neighborhoods.
The
Regardless, the supply of water is not unlimited. This area must become more conscious about water use and conservation.
The Sun-News series runs through Thursday. Check out the series’ home page, which includes a number of links to studies related to area growth and development and other interesting information.