There are parts of Santa Fe that have a lot of trees and greenery, there are parts of Taos that are very desert-like.
Overall, though, the Taos foothills area is a somewhat different climate zone than the Santa Fe plateau.
In terms of people, atmosphere, etc., Taos is much smaller than Santa Fe.
Keeping in mind that all parts of El Norte deal with the challenge of welding together a community, from very disparate sub-communities, including Native peoples who have been here the longest, Hispanic peoples who've been here for centuries, first wave Anglos who've been here going on a century and a half, later waves of Anglos and immigrant Latinos. All of them have their own perceptions about community and how/whether we should share resources and look after one anothers well-being, and they don't necessarily mesh cleanly. The power dynamics are layered, with many being very subtle, almost invisible, but they greatly affect community life and the sense of "people and place."
To begin with, both communities are heavily dependent on tourists for our economic structure. In winter, it's ski/sport driven. In other seasons it's more variable, but includes outdoor activity folks (hike/bike/tour/ecology), arts (many forms- performance, visual, etc.), history/culture (Native, wild West,) and counter-culture (spiritual quests, new age connection, alternative healing, etc.)
Taos has a smaller, more closely-knit community. It also has a very strong recovery community, if you're in recovery you might like it. But because it *is* smaller, and because tourism is the overwhelmingly strongest, almost the only real economic driver, it's very much structured around that. There is a bit less diversity of day-to-day economic focus and fewer services, activities, etc.
Santa Fe has more economic diversity, between state government, services to surrounding communities, the growing film industry, etc. It's got more diversity of services, activities, etcetera.
If you like the small-town sense of knowing everyone and everyone knowing (or at least recognizing) you, the everyone sharing each others' business, the homeiness of a 'small pond', you'll probably like Taos better. If you want occasional surprises, diversity, the sense of there being a larger/more diverse community around you, you may like Santa Fe better. It's a "large town" rather than a small city, but it has some small city sense to it.
helpfully,
Bright
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