New Mexico: The Suburb Without the Urb

Perched in remote splendor on a 7,300-ft. mesa between New Mexico's Jemez Mountains and the Pojoaque Valley, Los Alamos has neither rich nor poor among its 15,000 inhabitants.

It has no unemployment, practically no crime, few old people. It does have one big boss: the U.S. Government, which largely owns the city and is responsible for most of its payroll. Last week the residents of Los Alamos prepared for the community's greatest upheaval since it was founded in 1942 for the purpose of designing and producing the world's first atomic bombs. Beginning next month, the Atomic Energy Commission will help Los Alamos toward independence by selling off $39 million worth of Government-owned homes, apartments, stores and vacant tracts of land.

The first beneficiaries of the sale will be the residents of Los Alamos. Up to now, they could own little property in the city, have paid the U.S. between $69 and $186 a month to rent their duplexes and single homes. They will be given first choice in buying their current residences at prices as much as 25% below recently appraised values. Not for sale: the massive scientific laboratories, where half the research is still devoted to atomic weaponry, half to peaceful applications of the atom.

Paternalism & Subsidization. Despite their windfall, Los Alamos' new owners may have difficulty adjusting to life without Government paternalism. The Zia Co., which the AEC helped set up to maintain Los Alamos homes and neighborhoods at no cost to the residents, will go out of business, leaving homeowners to make their own repairs and mow their own lawns. Owners will also have to begin paying real estate taxes to the city of Los Alamos, which hopes eventually to attract private business and achieve a stable economy of its own. To smooth its path toward financial independence, the U.S. is donating Government-owned schools, a hospital and municipal buildings worth millions, will spend $1,000,000 to improve local utilities and will grant other subsidies to the city.

Although population and building booms are expected in labor-short Los Alamos as a result of the sale, the town will retain the unique character imposed on it by its atomic industry. On its Los Alamos payroll of 3,700 people —virtually the entire community labor force—the AEC employs 478 Ph.D.s, 316 people with M.S. degrees and 618 with B.S. degrees. This concentration of intellect has pressured Los Alamos schools into keeping pace by adopting advanced curriculums, has placed a premium on educational excellence. Los Alamos children have heredity and environment on their side even before they start school. "They seem to be under some compulsion to get their education finished before they fool around with any of the problems of puberty," says School Superintendent C. W. Richard. Police records bear him out. There is practically no juvenile delinquency in Los Alamos.