Albuquerque, NM - Whats the feel for the city? (Rio Rancho: crime rate, felons)

[Tiger Beer]

Whats the feel for the city?

Also.. how about the buildings? I heard it has more of a brown color to it.. much like the surroundings.. or adobe earthtones.. is that true?

Is the city spread out? Does it feel like a suburb or like a city? Comfortable or inconveniences? How is the driving around - convenient or doesn't make sense?

how does the city compare with say Tucson? as i've heard them commonly compared.. but not sure the commonalities and differences.. how are they similar/different?

what are average housing prices there? are they going up quite a bit?

people that live there.. where do they usually want to go if they could go anywhere? (funny question.. but when I lived in NYC.. people that would want to move.. always mentioned SF).. its always somewhere..

I'll think of more questions later..

[councilor j]

Albuquerque is the perfect sized city,but it dosent have much of a skyline for being a city with almost half a million people.On the west side of Albq. most of the buildings are adobe desert colored and the landscape is mostly rocks and yuccas and looks very attractive with the sandia mountain in the background.Everything you need is usually located conviently all-together,unlike Phoenix, its the perfect size to get around, traffic is congested on the west side but still better than some cities.It feels like a city with no suburbs, but does have 1 called Rio Rancho.Houses are popping up all over the city mostly on the west side and Rio Rancho and ranger from 120,000,and up.The weather is nice and the city is growing.

[countryrush]

I hate Albuquerque, plainly said. There is waaaayyy too many people here, and horrible drivers!! It gets really congested on all the highways, no way around it. The prices are ridiculous, for ex. my 3 bedroom 1.5 small small house is 1000 a month, 150,000 to buy. pretty pricy. There is too much crime here. Not very good bus service if you are interested in that. The only similarity in Alb. and Tucson is the western feel. Although that is all changing now b/c a lot of ppl are moving here. The suburbs are Corrales, Rio Rancho, Los Ranchos, Placitas, I think there's a couple more, can't remember. Corrales has a small town feel with all the horses but it is ridiculously expensive for little tiny houses. Once again, just being honest, if they could pick up Albuquerque and chunk it out of NM, a lot of ppl would be a lot happier. As a person who came from a small town in southern NM and moving up here for college, a lot of people in Albuquerque think that they are better. There are a lot of restaurants here, and most of the nightclubs are on central, where all the murders are. In conclusion, I would never raise any children here and I am moving as soon as possible.

[Mike from back east]

I have a pal who lives there, he tells me the crime rate is high, that 'car theft is a guilded craft' among high school boys, etc. I verified his remarks by using data found in a book called "Cities Ranked and Rated." I believe similar data is found on this website. Still, we went house hunting there with a realtor and this is what we saw:

- When my pal left his house he left lights on and a radio playing to keep the bad guys away. He says there are 30,000 felons on the street in that city, but the cops won't pick them up because the jails in NM are already full.

- We saw iron bars over the windows of most homes, including those we viewed with the realtor. There were big yappy guard dogs in almost every yard. Every house had an alarm system.

- Traffic was bad, most roads are old, and not enough roads.

- Development is what realtors call 'spotty,' which is to say they'll be some nice new houses on this street, and a block away is yukky decrepit stuff, or a strip mall, or some sort of ugliness.

- Very few houses will have basements in that area.

- You gotta like brown. It's a desert environment.

We did see some nice homes, but we never got a warm fuzzy for the town.

s/Mike

[camesquibel]

I currently live in Indiana but originally from New Mexico. Sad to say but New Mexico is a really bad place to live. As soon as my husband and I graduated from college we left it behind to raise our children in a safer environment. We both miss our families terribly but we visit a few times a year. No matter which town you decide to settle down in, you will find gangs, drugs, and ATTITUDE!! I was born and raised in a little town about 120 miles north of Albuquerque. The population there is less than 20,000, but it is bad. Every so often I get a call from my parents that there is another murder. I apologize for people's mentality there because they do not like to accept people that are not their "own." I had to admit I had a chip on my shoulder too until I moved and realized that there is a whole big world out there.

[councilor j]

yeah I heard that people in Nothern New Mexico dont accept outsiders in their towns, and my opinion is most of the smaller towns are more dangerous than the bigger towns, such as gallup,farmington,clovis,and roswell.Almost anywhere you go in New Mexico there are going to be gangs and crime above average.

[camesquibel]

What is really interesting that there is a lot of town rivalries. My hometown has two high schools and we couldn't stand eachother. Whenever we played against each other, the police department had to patrol because of rumbles. BUT... if another school came to play we banded together in case they made problems with us.
It might be a good idea to know some spanish. We speak alot of spanglish.

[icpc]

Hello

Do not even consider moving to albuquerque. It is the worst place I have ever had to endure. Here are some details you will not see advertized:
Lot's of trash, 50 miles anywhich direction./ Lot's of crime, anywhere on a regular bases no matter where you live/ un-friendly and flat out racist culture
(expect to experience reversed racism)/ very low wages(it does not matter if you have a Masters degree or not)/ lot's of dogs barking round the clock(it is normal here)/ lot's of fireplace smoke at night/ lot's of drunks on the roads/ It is basicly a rogue wild -west town. YOU WILL SEE ALL OF THESES THINGS DAILY...

[countryrush]

yep, i made $10.00 in alamogordo as a lifeguard in highschool, and here the best i could find was my job now that is $6.50. its horrible, almost makes me not want to waste the gas to drive there. i know my dogs bark and every single one of the houses around me has dogs, most of them are pit bulls and other various attack dogs. kinda makes you wonder........

[kathy58]

is the whole state like the things i have read here?