There has always been a gentle rivalry in New Mexico. Red or green. Chimayó or Hatch. Lobos or Aggies. The Río Grande and the I-25 corridor mirror that split too, with different ways of seeing the world and different habits of governance. Lately, though, something surprising is happening. Southern New Mexico is quietly showing more poise and seriousness in confronting one of the most urgent issues facing our state: the housing shortage.
Silver City, a community far smaller than Albuquerque or Santa Fe, just passed one of the most thoughtful, well-executed zoning reforms in New Mexico. Their Planning and Zoning Commission and their Town Council both approved the package unanimously and without the drama we are seeing consistently in Albuquerque. No meltdowns or endless public comment catered to fear. They lifted their ban on multiplexes across much of the city and legalized neighborhood businesses that used to be part of daily life in older New Mexico towns, including ours. They made ADUs easier to build and relaxed parking requirements. They modernized definitions so childcare centers, artisan studios, and small local shops can legally open in the places that need them most and let entrepreneurs get started from their own backyards (literally).
And when residents raised concerns about noise or traffic, city leaders explained something that Albuquerque’s NIMBY class refuses to accept. Zoning is not a noise ordinance nor is it traffic law. Zoning is about where homes and businesses can go. Other tools regulate impacts and channeling Nolan Gray, Silver City’s leaders calmly pointed out that zoning is not a good tool for those issues. Silver City leaders spoke plainly, used facts, and didn’t run from change. They said aloud what housing experts already know: the housing shortage is now touching every aspect of life in their town. They acted like the issue mattered.
Silver City’s reform was grounded in real people trying to build real homes and address the needs of the town and county as they were beginning to feel acute, even in small-town New Mexico. During public comment, resident Robin Kopit explained that he owns four properties in town and plans to move to Silver City in January. On a small lot near the university, he wants to add three new homes next to an existing one. Under the old code, he said, it was impossible. Parking requirements and outdated rules made the project financially unworkable. “The changes to the land use code will allow the project to move forward,” he told the council.
And the council understood. Councilor Cano thanked the commission for its extensive work. Councilor Prince put the urgency into words. “One of the hardest challenges being on council these last few years has been access to housing and how much that has been knocking onto every single sector, to every single family here,” he said. “This is an incredible document.” Councilor Snider added that the overhaul would “really help the entire process.”
It was a reminder of what real leadership looks like. Clear-eyed and fact-driven. Focused on getting homes built instead of finding reasons not to and following best practices to get there. Leaders also underlined the need to make sure Silver’s zoning documents became living documents. That today’s solutions may not work tomorrow, and that we need to be comfortable with change, adaptation, and amending our codes to serve the wider public interest.
Meanwhile, farther up the I-25 corridor, things look different.
In Albuquerque, Santa Fe, and Los Alamos, a loud and landed minority still dominates local politics. These are places with the highest concentrations of wealth and political capital in the state. They are also places with the deepest attachment to a mid-century idea of “neighborhood preservation” that has failed everyone except the people who bought in decades ago. Albuquerque has among the highest ratios of single-family zoning in the country. Santa Fe’s shortage is so severe that the city is at risk of being unable to staff essential public services. Los Alamos is so restrictive that workers for the Labs drive over an hour each way for the privilege of being part of a community they cannot afford to live in, even in high-earning positions.
And in each of these places, organized NIMBY groups continue to dominate hearings with misinformation, fear campaigns, and personal attacks on volunteers and advocates. They say they support affordability but oppose every policy that makes homes easier to build. They say they care about community while opposing the very neighborhoods that let communities grow. They live in a profound cognitive dissonance, convinced the city is failing yet fighting every structural solution that could make things better.
Many professionals, young families, and mid-career workers do not want large single-detached houses. They want small-scale multiplexes, cottage courts, townhomes, condos, and homes near places they can walk. They want an urban life that is affordable, social, and connected. These are the people who keep our schools open with enrollment, keep our shops open as regular patrons, strengthen our tax base, and add to our cultural and civic life. When we fail to offer the housing types they prefer, they leave. And once they leave, too many do not come back.
That is why action in Silver City and Las Cruces matters so much. Together, they show that reform is possible. It shows that New Mexico’s future is not being held hostage by fear everywhere. In fact, the south is stepping into a leadership role that northern cities have been too slow to take.
Silver City’s action also echoes what Las Cruces recently did. Both cities not only lifted bans on multiplexes, they also relegalized neighborhood-scaled businesses that once defined New Mexican life. Before twentieth-century zoning imported strict use segregation, communities like Barelas and Old Town in Albuquerque, and Mesilla and the Mesquite Street district in Las Cruces, grew around small tiendas, corner groceries, workshops, and home-based enterprises. These places were walkable because people could live, work, and shop in the same area. By restoring these patterns, Southern New Mexico is not just joining a national zoning reform movement. They are reconnecting with traditions that long predate Euclidian zoning and honoring a way of building community that is authentically New Mexican.
What makes this moment especially interesting is that the ground is shifting here, too.
In Albuquerque, the Environmental Planning Commission just advanced one of the strongest pro-homes packages in the country to City Council. It would legalize duplexes and townhomes across formerly exclusive neighborhoods. It brings back cottage courts that once defined Albuquerque’s most beloved areas. It lifts the ban on small neighborhood businesses in walkable areas. It is not Silver City’s eightplex legalization, but it is real progress, and the vote was nearly unanimous. That almost never happens in Albuquerque land use fights. It signals that the moral weight of the housing crisis is starting to break through.
Santa Fe, for all of its political inertia, passed the first phase of its Land Use Code Modernization. It is slow and bureaucratic, but it happened. Voters in Las Cruces recently beat back a petition effort aimed at blocking their own zoning reform and both elected and reelected council candidates that supported them, showing once again that these policies are broadly popular statewide. The loudest opponents are not the majority. They are simply the most practiced at showing up and shutting down.
The stakes are high. As winter settles in, people are sleeping outside because the supply of homes is nowhere close to the need. Young people are leaving the state because they cannot build a life here. Even high-earning workers at Sandia and Los Alamos increasingly talk about leaving because it is too difficult to find a home that they want within a reasonable commute. Without more housing, New Mexico will lose the talent it needs to secure a stable future. Without more homes at all income levels and types, the crisis upstream will continue to overflow into homelessness downstream. This is not hypothetical. It is visible on every block.
Which brings us back to Silver City. They showed that a small town with limited resources and high community expectations can look at the facts, acknowledge the urgency, and pass real reform. They showed that fear does not have to win and that New Mexico can meet this moment if it chooses to. Across the state, the pattern is unmistakable. Communities are realizing that a lack of studies is not the issue and that we don’t just “have to wait and see.” The answers have been sitting on the table. We know how to legalize more homes and we know how to support local builders. We know how to revive neighborhood businesses and give them a clientele that can keep them open. We know how to give people options to age in place, raise families, rent close to work, and build stability.
This is an open-book test. Our challenge is not a lack of information. It is a lack of urgency and political will.
The question now is whether Albuquerque, Santa Fe, and Los Alamos will follow the lead of our southern neighbors or whether they will remain trapped in the same cycle of denial, misinformation, and neighborhood veto power that created this crisis in the first place? And if Albuquerque and Santa Fe continue to sit out this season of statewide change, the question becomes unavoidable: Should the Roundhouse step in? Many, us included, would argue that moment is already here. Housing is a statewide emergency, not a municipal hobby. Local inaction is not harmless. It affects the entire state’s economic future as It risks losing the next generation of workers and families, along with people who would build careers at the Labs, at the universities, in health care, education, and the trades. The Legislature has the authority to ensure that every city contributes to solving this crisis. Silver City and Las Cruces prove that reform is possible and in doing so, they also prove that delay is a choice.
For a state that loves its rivalries, the message from the south could not be clearer. If we want a New Mexico where people can build roots, raise families, age in place, and stay in the communities they grew up in, it will take courage. It will take zoning reform. It will take leaders willing to do what Silver City just did.
Southern New Mexico acted. The rest of the state has no excuse.
Small lots now allowed, making entry-level homes and starter housing far more feasible. Makes lot splitting easier, and provides easier permitting and lot subdivision in future expansions.
Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) are easier to build, expanding gentle density and multigenerational living options.
Up to 8 homes are now legal on the lowest-density residential zone, with even higher unit counts allowed on the city’s two other primary residential zones.
Neighborhood-scaled businesses, workshops, and artisan studios are relegalized, restoring the mixed-use patterns that once defined New Mexican communities.
Parking requirements are reduced, lowering construction costs and making more housing projects financially viable.
https://www.grantcountybeat.com/news/news-articles/town-of-silver-city-increases-sanitation-rates
Reimagining Albuquerque 
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