The plan: Create a “cultural corridor” linking Santa Fe to Albuquerque and Taos, and encourage collaborative efforts to preserve, expand and market each area’s unique culture.

The plan: Create community workspaces where young artists can live and work, then run those in conjunction with pop-up shops or galleries, where these artists can sell their work and hold events.

This edition of SFR’s annual “Local Economy” issue contains fewer exhortations to buy local produce (still important!) or patronize local coffee shops. Instead, we asked several business and community leaders a single question: What’s one thing that Santa Fe can do to improve its own economy? In asking this question, we hope to start a meaningful conversation about economic development in Santa Fe. We also hope to provide a road map for public officials and community leaders so that they can contact these people, refine their ideas and make them happen. As long as a national economic recovery lurks elusively beyond our adobe walls, we may as well create our own way forward.

Paul Singdahlsen has been a state employee for 18 years. Each day, he helps with maintenance work on art pieces and exhibits for the Department of Cultural Affairs. But only in the past four years has he begun to notice a trend: He and his colleagues have been taking on more work for less pay.

On Dec. 5, just a block from the state capitol, the trial began to determine the shape of New Mexico’s new legislative districts. Redistricting actually begins with the Legislature, which approved several plans last spring; however, Gov. Susana Martinez vetoed most of them.

Santa Fe got a taste of the Occupy Wall Street protests when around 75 people demonstrated at a local Bank of America on Oct. 1.

Over the past month, protests in the Occupy Wall Street movement have spread across the nation. In Santa Fe, they’ve centered around Bank of America—the recipient of the second-largest bailout package in 2008.

This week, SFR offers a look at New Mexico’s political climate: the races to watch, the rhetoric to consider (or reject) and the tools needed to research the candidates. It may be almost fall in Santa Fe, but that doesn’t mean there will be any less hot air to contend with in 2012.