Pajarito Mesa in Albuquerque, NM

Pajarito Mesa is a rural stretch of high ground in Bernalillo County, roughly ten miles southwest of central Albuquerque, on the tableland between the Rio Grande and Rio Puerco valleys. The land belonged to the Pajarito Land Grant until the 1930s, when a California realty company bought it and cut it into large parcels averaging about ten acres, some far larger. Families began settling the mesa in the 1970s. Those original legal descriptions left out easements for roads and utilities, so the area grew without a platted street grid, a public water line or a connection to the electrical grid.

Bernalillo County counts the mesa as a census-designated place of about twenty-one square miles, and the missing easements still shape daily life. Without a county-recognized road able to carry a fire truck, building permits are hard to come by, and the county has pursued zoning cases over unpermitted structures. A county water station gives households a place to fill tanks, and power generally comes from solar panels rather than a utility line. No homeowners association governs the mesa, and the parcels were never platted as a subdivision.