Is Cedar Crest considered a suburb of Albuquerque? (Rio Rancho, Los Lunas: for sale, real estate)

[lisdol]

Cedar Crest is exit 175. There is a lot in the NE Hts before the Big I so for the sake of argument, lets say you do most of your Albuquerque stuff in the NE Hts. I think the Big I exit is 159. So you are looking at 16 miles of pure freeway without considering how many miles on top of that. I'd add 10 for good measure, so lets call the whole thing at most 26 miles each way. Just to estimate. Getting to the zoo, aquarium, old town will be exit 157, but much of your shopping and movies can be had east of that.

If you get 25 mpg, you are looking at about 2 gallons of gas for a trip into town. If you get 15 mpg, its over 3 gallons. If you drive a Prius, well, happy day for you, but you will still pay more than if you lived in Albuquerque.

Hope that helps a little.

[lisdol]

Oh, and I would say UPPER middle class people live in Cedar Crest and go into town for work and play and its not as much as a financial burden. Houses in Cedar Crest are more expensive than in Moriarty or Edgewood.

[rybert]

Yeah, it's doable, but shouldn't be your first choice. I'd be comfortable expecting about a 35min. commute on average.

Have you looked into Edgewood? You'd be closer to a variety of schools and businesses. The commute would be about the same (or less depending on how deep into Cedar Crest you'd be).

[mortimer]

It doesn't matter all that much what your gas mileage is. It's generally less than half the cost of operating a vehicle. Unless you are comparing the operating cost of a Hummer vs. a Civic, it just isn't significant.

The main cost of a commute is time and the wastage of your life thereof. That's why I don't choose to live there even though I like the area very much. The drive would take too much time away from intellectual pursuits.

People live in Cedar Crest for the ambience of the mountain air and/or proximity to mountain fun.

It's also nice to be able to come home to a cool place after a hot day in the city.

Also note that even if your commute takes you to Intel ( I knew lots of people who did it ), you can go into town and go shopping at much closer places.

[EnjoyEP]

Originally Posted by Tim Rankin

I agree, there is no way that SF and Socorro are "suburbs" of Albuq. Santa Fe is...Santa Fe. Socorro has been there a long, long time, well before ABQ was anywhere near as big as it is, and is a good distance from ABQ.

Now Los Lunas may well be considered by some to be a suburb, although personally, I might place it in the "exurb" community. I would say Belen and Bernalillo resemble "satellite cities." [for now, before the ABQ-SFE metroplex gobbles them up].

Sorry for drumming up an old, old, old post...I know that's kind of a cardinal sin...however, I have almost never done it, and after 3-bajillion posts, I am doing it once, just because I found this thread and found it interesting, especially to friend-ily debate one of Mr. Rankin's points here.

I agree in this quote that no way is Socorro a suburb of ABQ. There are miles and miles and miles of open desert between ABQ and Socorro. Heck, to me, Socorro's the quarter-way marker between ABQ and El Paso (with T or C being 1/2 way and Las Cruces being 3/4 way).

Santa Fe is also not a suburb. I think - again - there are far, far too many vast open miles between ABQ and SF; similarly, Santa Fe is a capital city...I would be hard-pressed to describe nearly any state capital city as a suburb of another. Santa Fe is not associated with ABQ in terms of a presence, it stands alone.

However....

I would describe Los Lunas as a suburb (not an exurb, even though I know there is still a bit of desert in between ABQ and LL). Especially as Mesa Del Sol continues to go in the future, and now as LL continues to build and expand, that to me is the southern suburb.

Belen? Yep, satellite city - agreed.

However....the one I really friendly disagree with is Bernalillo. Bernalillo now essentially is a suburb. There are many parts of ABQ's NW side where you can't tell you've run through into Rio Rancho, and many spots where you can't tell you've run through RR into Bernalillo. To me, Bernalillo's really become a burb of ABQ.

[mortimer]

Originally Posted by EnjoyEP

Sorry for drumming up an old, old, old post ...
I know that's kind of a cardinal sin ...

No it's not. It depends on the context. Everything in here is relevant and not dated in the least.

Besides, I had a lot of excellent posts in this thread that are always worth re-reading.

ObOnTopic:
Belen is right next to Los Lunas. Belen = suburb.
So is anything close to I-40 and still in the pines on the East side of the Sandias.

[Tim Rankin]

Honestly EP, I'll go along with classifying Bernalillo as a suburb. A satellite city needs a greater mass of business & industry, and there's not enough of a geographical "break" to qualify it as an exurb.

Los Lunas is fast becoming a suburb, but I remember a bit more distance & desert between the ABQ metro & LL, than Bernalillo, which is why I still consider it an exurb [MDS+ may change that]. Really not that much business there, but it is extensively used as a bedroom community for Albuq. Belen, not quite as much. Belen is tough one to classify.

[mortimer]

Originally Posted by Tim Rankin

Belen, not quite as much. Belen is tough one to classify.

Why do you think that?

It's right next to Los Lunas. Distance isn't important.

The only reason there is a gap between the Albuquerque city line and Los Lunas is the Isleta Reservation.

[EnjoyEP]

Originally Posted by Tim Rankin

Los Lunas is fast becoming a suburb, but I remember a bit more distance & desert between the ABQ metro & LL, than Bernalillo, which is why I still consider it an exurb ... Belen is tough one to classify.

Yeah, TR, as you note on Belen, I do think that ABQ Metro in general is fairly non-conventional in terms of suburb, exurb, etc., in comparison to many other towns.

I think we all agree that the East Mountain communities are suburbs. It is just somewhat different "in feel" than most large US cities because of the mountain...eg: you don't just cross a boundary separating Milwaukee, WI from Wauwatosa, WI or Denver, CO and Aurora, CO (or Albuquerque, NM and Rio Rancho, NM)...you have to climb up a mountain. However, they are suburbs nontheless.

But that whole mountain component alone makes it certainly unconventional. For instance, really, how do you classify a Placitas? Really only 10 or 15 minutes directly off I-25 to the north east of ABQ's NE Heights, however, to get to much of Placitas, you might be driving up in the foothills 30 minutes.

I think why I feel so strongly about Bernalillo is that you can literally drive "across boundaries" - Albuquerque, straight into Rio Rancho, straight into Bernalillo - in 15 minutes from point to point - and in that area, not even really "feel" or realize you've crossed boundaries.

However, you are right about Los Lunas...you do have a good 10 minutes or so of open space / desert, between ABQ and LL.

I would argue for LL being a suburb (and not an exurb), because of a few factors:

a. LL is the nearest "bedroom" community to Albuquerque directly on the south - eg: there isn't a community nearer (although I know Bosque Farms, Tome, etc., kind of factor in there a tad).

and...

b. With LL being the direct bedroom community on the south, while there is only open space / desert between ABQ and LL and a decent amount of miles, it isn't like 35 or 40 miles. It is still relatively close, even though in between one encounters more cholla than Super 8s.

I regrettably currently live in Milwaukee metro, a much more "conventional" big city metro area. You have the big, 600K city Milwaukee at the core (with the lake on the east and burbs to the north, south, and west), and you've got those "waves" of burbs. As you drive, say, west, you'll go through inner ring suburbs, through to outer ring suburbs, through to finally exurbs - which are a heckuva way out to me.

My folks live in a town that is 35 miles to Downtown Milwaukee and is quite separated; even though many commute daily to Milwaukee from their town, to me, that is an exurb.

But I hear what you are saying. And isn't that the beauty of the City Data forum? Geography dorks like us debating whether Los Lunas, NM is best classified as a "suburb" or an "exurb"!

As for Belen, yeah, that is an odd one. I can see mortimer's point and see it fitting a "suburb" classification...certainly the Rail Runner thing probably adds to that too...but I can also see it classified as other things too; it is a hard one.

That is another thing that makes ABQ so unique - besides miles and mountains separating towns out from ABQ despite still being suburbs, so many suburbs typically feed / exist off of the identity, culture, or economics of the big city. While I suppose some of that is true for a Belen, when I used to hit Belen (so often) for business, Belen "felt" like a completely different town / place / way of life than ABQ. I suppose you could say that about the East Mountain towns to a degree too (depending upon town).

Hey, who knows? They keep moving west on that Mesa, and someday we'll be calling Grants an exurb!!! (Shudder, shudder...)...

[EnjoyEP]

Originally Posted by mortimer

The only reason there is a gap between the Albuquerque city line and Los Lunas is the Isleta Reservation.

This is a good point, and one I failed to observe as well. To the north as well, the Reservations add to the interesting dichotomy of the Albuquerque metro area in terms of boundary / layout / suburbs v. exurbs, etc.