Why hasn't New Mexico

become Detroit?

A recent report listed New Mexico as one of eleven states where the number of persons on welfare exceeds the number of persons employed. Which is to say, New Mexico's economy stinks.

Yet, if you drive around my adopted home town of Las Cruces, you will not see the decay that has settled upon Detroit. We have many modest homes, not all of which are well kept, but you will be hard pressed to find the abandoned homes that plague Detroit's neighborhoods? Why is that?

There is one distinct reason. Early in the last century, with the birth of the automobile manufacturing industry, people flocked to Detroit for the jobs. They physically moved to Detroit, but there hearts often remained elsewhere. The situation was described in a 1963 song written by Danny Dill and Mel Tillis, wherein the lyric said "By day I make the cars, by night I make the bars", and "Oh, how I wanna go home."

When the jobs gave out, they did go home... by the tens of thousands. Their abandoned homes fell to the broken window theory: if a window is broken in a building, and is not mended, soon another window will be broken, because the unmended window is a sign that no one cares. Before long, every window in the building will be broken.

In Detroit, they went much further. Plumbing and electrical fixtures, even doors, were ripped out to be sold on the used market.

In New Mexico, however, the residents are permanent. Not only were many born in New Mexico, their parents and grandparents were born here. They are not "going home", they are at home. So, they tough out the bad economy and hope for better times.

The sad part of this story is that New Mexicans keep re-electing the politicians that created and sustain these sorry economic conditions.