Zane's World
Unfriendly, but Hot
By: Zane Fischer 10/14/2009
I’ll bet they’re creaming in their brochures down at the Santa Fe Convention and Visitors Bureau.
Santa Fe is once again a prominent player in Travel + Leisure magazine’s annual survey of America’s favorite cities. For those who don’t know, Travel + Leisure pretty much defines modern global culture. At least, that’s the magazine’s claim, so it must be true.
Out of 30 cities voted on by visitors to Travel + Leisure’s website, Santa Fe has captured the kind of rankings that bring joy to the hearts of the interminably boring and glee to the small minds and fat wallets of status quo admirers. Santa Fe is the No. 1 city for peace and quiet, the No. 2 city for relaxing retreats and the No. 3 city for environmental friendliness and cultural getaways. That’s the kind of publicity you can use to auction off your overstock of crappy condominiums with, by golly. Or to maintain the kind of tepid business climate and last-century marketing that has cemented Santa Fe’s reputation as a place that, while feared by daring entrepreneurs, is great for getting a pedicure, having your picture taken with an actual Native American and still being in bed by 9 pm.
If you are the sort who squanders the workaday by browsing the internet when you ought to be producing value for the lagging economy, you can check out Travel + Leisure’s related online features, like “City Face-Off.” Pick two cities, line them up like gladiators or American Idol contestants or Facebook friends, and see which one comes out on top.
It’s kind of fun to choose a city at random—say, Portland, Ore.—and see how it stacks up against Santa Fe. Apparently, people in Portland are smarter and friendlier than people in Santa Fe, but we’re much better looking. They’re more athletic, but we are more diverse and stylish. Attempting to empirically verify Santa Fe as a diverse and stylish city full of quiet, cantankerous, hot people, however, offers a clue that Travel + Leisure’s methods may not be exactly scientific.
I’m willing to wager most voters in the favorite-cities poll have never been to most of the places they’re ranking. In other words, people are voting based on preconceptions formed by, for example, Travel + Leisure magazine.
It’s no accident Santa Fe is perceived as a quiet city that’s good for a relaxing retreat—that’s the message our visitors’ bureau puts out to the rest of the world using our tax dollars. It came as a surprise to me to learn that, according to Travel + Leisure, “the heady aroma of burning piñon logs permeates the air every night in Santa Fe,” but I’m sure it’s considered “on message” down at the CVB.
Of course, such heady aromas probably do permeate the air of hotel lobbies every night, which is evidence that very few people visit Santa Fe—instead they visit a controlled experience punctuated by prescribed markers. There’s evidence that the difference between these two Santa Fes is extreme. According to Travel + Leisure, one of Santa Fe’s most tragic negatives is “big name luxury hotels.” I was wholly in agreement until I realized that Travel + Leisure’s opinion is that we don’t have enough of them.
Let’s straighten out some of these other inverted allegations about Santa Fe.
No. 1 for “peace and quiet”: Not if you’re staying at Hotel St. Francis on a night when The Matador, El Paseo, Evangelo’s, Milagro 139, Del Charro and Catamount are in full swing. Not if you visit High Mayhem instead of the San Miguel Church. Not if you’re here for Zozobra. Not if you live on Agua Fria.
No. 5 for “safety”: Not if you ride a bicycle. Not if you’re a woman alone at night. Not if you consider drunken drivers a hazard. Not if you think getting punched to death in a median or a park might be unsafe. Not if the primary threat to your safety is domestic violence from a licensed security guard carrying a possibly illegal firearm. Not if you live on Agua Fria.
No. 5 for “cleanliness”: Not if you’ve ever been to an arroyo. Not if you consider the populace habitually hurling half-empty fast-food containers and beer bottles out the windows of moving cars to be messy. Not if you live on Agua Fria.
No. 9 for “ethnic food”: Not unless you consider the Navajo taco to be ethnic. Not unless you’ve never heard of Ethiopia. Not if you live on Agua Fria.
No. 12 for “diverse”: Not if you consider 94 percent white and Hispanic to be somewhat limiting. Not if you consider Asian, black and Pacific Islander populations below 2 percent to be small. Not if you know Santa Fe County only has a little more than 3 percent Native American population. Not if you live on Agua Fria.
So, Travel + Leisure readers and editors, thanks for parroting the ad dollars and reducing real, vibrant, textured, complex and problematic communities into banal generalizations and bland categories. Thanks, but no thanks.
Comments (5)
You guys are cracking me up.
I've got no problem with El Camino Real de La Tierra Adentro, as I suspect is obvious from *reading* the column.
What I do have a problem with are the bland categorizations made by consumer magazines.
Agua Fria is the REAL (small pun) Santa Fe, something that appears to elude the staff at Travel + Leisure.
Or do you think Travel + Leisure gets the heart and soul of Santa Fe? If so, perhaps you'd "deign" to tell me how?
BTW, Bert's is now Epazote and only a small part of Agua Fria is "near" downtown. And the Camino Real would only be the Camino Royale is James Bond lived here.
Agua Fria rocks! Agua Fria is terrific! What's Zane's problem, anyway (answer: he's inzane. Just look at that photo of him, raving. But I suppose that's just meant to be cool, or to graphically depict his passion, or something). Anyway, like most mediocre writers, Zane complains (in this instance, about Agua Fria) without bothering to get off his duff and explain the reason why he dislikes (or fears?) Agua Fria. What a Wuss! So, in the absence of any documentation of his neuroses, let's try to find out what the problem is here. Is it the Wino's near Andy's Liquorette? A bunch of harmless broken men who need compassion, not criticism (and spare change if you have it). The Speed Bumps? Blame the City, not the Street. Burt's Tacqueria? Not that bad. A La Mesa? It's garbage, but SFR no-nothings actually LIKE it! Terrific location, near downtown, lots of character? Well heck, that's no reason to dislike a street! In the end, we are left with no clue as to why the clueless Mr. Fischer dislikes (or fears) Agua Fria Street. So perhaps he will deign to, uh, enlighten us. Meanwhile, we who do not see through a glass darkly will continue to love it, as we have from the beginning. It's the Camino Royale, the Royal Road, to Mexico City, Fischer. Duhhhhh.
Hey--- I love Santa Fe. And I love Agua Fria. I live on Agua Fria. I guess maybe it's a tough love...
Zane,
Why don't you look around and find another place that you can hate?
Or at least get some counseling on your fear of Agua Fria.
Seriously, perhaps you need to reassess why you live in Santa Fe.
Most of the people I meet in this town live here because of a common appreciation of the physical beauty, the pleasant weather, the easy access to hiking, skiing, snowshoeing, fishing, etc.
With regard to diversity, I suspect that T & L were referring to the ability of Anglo/hispanic/native american/gay community to coexist in a small town.
The reporter should do a better job of screening it's editorial staff since the locals who advertise in it's pages benefit from tourism.
Hi, I'm the President of the Agua Fria Village Association and someone alerted me to the "bad mouthing" of our community by the Santa Fe Reporter at the United Communities of Santa Fe County meeting.
I have read Agua Fria resident Zane's commentary and I concur with it. There is no bad mouthing of Agua Fria and I am relieved!
Agua Fria Village is a frame of reference, a traditional community living downstream of the fancy La Villa de Real de la Santa Fe de San Francisco de Asisi (with appropriate linguistic accents that can not be posted here)---with a 400th Anniversary celebration.
We were only 300 in 1993.
The Spirit of Santa Fe, Santa Fe Style, the City Different---this special place that Agua Fria can never live up to in reputation (or cost).
We are just a simple people in Agua Fria who still shovel around manure and pick up those beer bottles in our fields after Santa Feans celebrate Zozobra.
Hell, Zane lives on lands of the largest orchard in Agua Fria before the City cut off our water supply illegally. But not to worry because the City gave us effluent water from the sewer plant; and don't call it their secret Chemical Warfare plan because it contained radiation from the hospital and toxins from the drycleaners that turned the ground sterile.
So Agua Frians have that keen eye of skepticism when it comes to looking at what is "real" in the Villa Real.