One of the biggest spenders per student in the nation, the state has tied the expenditure to mineral wealth. Will legislators vote to raise state taxes?
Economy
Posted inApril 1, 2021: Holding Fast
Albuquerque’s racist history haunts its housing market
Policymakers and activists fight to remove pro-segregation, anti-immigrant provisions from property deeds.
Posted inArticles
Megadrought: New Mexico farms face uncertain future
‘If they have an option to not farm, they should consider that option.’
Posted inApril 1, 2021: Holding Fast
Idaho state lands could end up in private hands
How a developer’s proposed large land swap ignited a fight in small but growing McCall.
Posted inMarch 1, 2021: The Rough Road Ahead
Did James Plymell need to die?
How homelessness is criminalized in small cities and towns across the West.
Posted inArticles
Put unemployed miners and drillers back to work in restoration
There’s economic development in reclaiming coal mines and plugging idled wells.
Posted inArticles
Will New Mexico learn from coal’s decline?
The state relies on oil and gas revenue, but the industry faces an uncertain future.
Posted inArticles
Bozeman’s sole multicultural enclave faces evictions amid a housing crisis
For some residents, the displacement signals the loss of affordable housing — and the only diverse neighborhood in the Montana city.
Posted inArticles
New Mexico eyed for major nuclear waste storage facility
Critics say virtual meetings bypassed rural communities and raise concerns about the company behind the proposal.
Posted inFebruary 1, 2021: End of the Line
Is it time to decolonize the housing market?
In California, COVID-19 is exacerbating housing inequities. Indigenous activist Jackie Fielder believes she has a solution.
Posted inMarch 1, 2021: The Rough Road Ahead
Why Utah’s wild mink COVID-19 case matters
‘Vet-virologist’ Anna Fagre discusses the first positive case detected in the wild — and how ‘spillover’ could impact the West.
Posted inArticles
Indigenous fishers on the Columbia River confront new challenges
Beyond depleted salmon runs, the pandemic has created occupational hazards and a depressed salmon market.
Posted inFebruary 1, 2021: End of the Line
In cash-strapped Wyoming, a community votes for a new hospital
As the state cuts funding for public services, cities and counties are figuring out how to go it alone.
Posted inFebruary 1, 2021: End of the Line
New wind projects power local budgets in Wyoming
As the pandemic hit the fossil fuel industry, renewable energy projects filled community coffers.
Posted inJanuary 1, 2021: No Place Like Home
How the Zoom boom is changing the West
Remote workers are flocking to Western towns.
Posted inJanuary 1, 2021: No Place Like Home
When COVID hit, a Colorado county kicked out second-home owners. They hit back.
How a group of nonresident homeowners tried to influence a rural Colorado election.
Posted inArticles
Ski communities are ‘getting crunched on all sides’
The pandemic has heightened cost-of-living issues in resort towns.
Posted inArticles
Lawsuit over proposed fossil fuel railway in Utah moves forward
The plaintiff says funding earmarked for the project was meant for communities ‘to alleviate the boom and bust cycle of energy production.’
Posted inArticles
Local climate efforts cut costs and carbon in Wyoming
As the state doubles down on fossil fuels, towns chart their own path.
Posted inJanuary 1, 2021: No Place Like Home
Tracking the seasons of pandemic response in Seattle
Disaster researchers take a Prius-eye view of how COVID-19 is changing the city.