Reviews & Comments
Albuquerque, NM
re: My hometown used to be awesome now it's a $#! -
2/15/2017I'm right there with you....born and raised in ABQ and lived there for 36+ years before punching out in 2015. Everything you said is spot on true and I get extremely upset knowing that my hometown that was once a great place has turned into such a crime ridden hell hole. People continue to say "crime happens everywhere" which is absolutely true, but anyone from ABQ (which isn't that big at all) knows that it happens all the time there. Everyone knows someone who has been a victim and the tweakers have no regard for life and what makes things scary is the complete randomness of violent crimes there.
Albuquerque, NM
re: Safe-ish - 11/12/2016 -
11/29/2016This has to be one of the most moronic write-ups I've ever read. I don't know if this is a joke or if you are truly as incompetent as your comments make you sound. The fact that you can't even spell "Hillary" and then follow up by insinuating that a city is determined good or bad depending on who the state voted for in an election shows your significant lack of intelligence and education, but unfortunately you fit the status quo for many of the issues that are wrong with Albuquerque and New Mexico. I'm Hispanic and lived in Albuquerque for 38 years and while I have no doubt there are racist people everywhere in this country, not once in my life have I heard of "active klan members" being a problem in the state. You are however correct that Albuquerque (and New Mexico) are very progressive and that is also one of the primary reasons why it's a failed state being the poorest, least educated, least amount of economic opportunity, and highest reliance on government state in the country. So based on those facts alone and your obvious lack of intelligence, it is likely a perfect fit for you. I suspect others who are concerned with relevant issues such as public school education, crime rates, quality of life, and economic prosperity likely have vastly different thoughts. Go back to your safe space please.
Louisburg, KS
One year look at Louisburg from an outsiders persp -
9/12/2016My family relocated to Louisburg KS from the desert Southwest one year ago and we couldn't be happier with our move to the Midwest. Louisburg KS is essentially a suburb of Johnson County Kansas which consists of many cities and townships. Louisburg is a small town of about 4500 and while it has all the qualities of small town America, it's still only a quick 20 minute drive to just about anything you need and 45 minutes to everything Kansas City offers. From what I've seen in the year I've been here is that Louisburg is a combination of life long natives of the town combined with the growing commuter appeal of city folk looking for the qualities of small town America. The town is great and the quality of the schools here is probably as good as it could get from public schools. I'd even go so far as to say equal to some private school quality from where we moved from in Albuquerque NM. "Midwest Nice" is a real thing and I have seen it since I've moved here and has helped me be a better person as well. I will say that while I have had not issues living in Louisburg, there does seem to be some deep rooted tension from the "natives" and how they view and feel about the "transplants". I think it's fair to say that with Overland Park KS continuing to grow south, Louisburg has continued to grow as well and while still very small by my standards at ~4500 population, it's obviously grown beyond what some folks want, but there's nothing that can be done about that. It's a great All-American town that is very proud of its community and nation as a whole. I've never seen the level of patriotism that I have from the town of Louisburg and I'm perfectly fine with that and glad I'm raising my kids in this environment.
Albuquerque, NM
re: 39 year Native from ABQ NM - The Good, the bad -
6/4/2016I apologize for the typos and grammar errors in my write-up. Typing on a iPhone with autocorrect turned on is a bit of a challenge. I will add though, a good friend of mine who lives in a upper class neighborhood in ABQ was burglarized and cleaned out three days after I submitted my write-up. Property crime is out of control in ABQ.
Albuquerque, NM
39 year Native from ABQ NM - The Good, the bad, an -
5/23/2016I was born and raised in Albuquerque NM and lived there for nearly 39 years (minus 4 years in the military). I will never dispute the fact that Albuquerque is my hometown and there are many things I absolutely love about the high desert Southwest, but there are probably more things that I've grown to dislike as I've gotten older. In the past year, my family decided to move away from my hometown in search of a better quality of life. Here are some of the reasons that play a part in our decisions to leave Albuquerque.
THE ECONOMY AND JOB MARKET
I am formally educated, having a BBA and MBA degrees, and have been a working IT professional for nearly 19 years. In a nutshell, Albuquerque's job market is pretty miserable when compared with other similarly sized cities. I remember in college at UNM, I learned that New Mexico has the highest number of government jobs (per capita) and the lowest number of private sector jobs (per capita) in the entire country. What that means is that New Mexico is highly dependent on the government (aka handouts, subsidized everything). It's no secret that New Mexico is always one of the poorest (if not the poorest) state in the country which is a constant back and forth competition with Mississippi to be the bottom of every good ranking. The University of New Mexico, Sandia Labs, and Kirtland AFB, make up a significant part of the entire Albuquerque job market which is not a good thing. There are very few career enhancement opportunities outside the safety net of Kirtland AFB. The state itself isn't known to be "business friendly" and the vast majority of corporate expansions into New Mexico are in the form of call centers, which corporations purposely locate in "low skilled" workforce areas. Unfortunately it doesn't take very long to figure out that a major portion of the population is uneducated and downright complacent with their dress, appearance, and the overall way they carry themselves and human beings.
CRIME
I don't recall Albuquerque being known as a violent and dangerous city back when I was growing up but that changed as I grew older. As often is the case, people tend not to notice how significant something is when they live it every single day. The reality of Albuquerque (and New Mexico in general) being a violent and dangerous place started to set in with me after I got married nearly 15 years ago and had family visitors from out of state see things in person and on the news and ask my wife and I about it. We lived in a middle-upper class neighborhood and many of the homes still had bars on the windows which was shocking for our out of state visitors. Our house was burglarized and just about anyone in Albuquerque knows someone who has been as well. Auto thefts, personal property crimes, and vandalism are rampant. In the newest of new restaurants or entertainment venues, it's literally a matter of days, if not hours, before the stalls, walls, or somewhere else has graffiti on it. As far as violent crime goes, it's off the charts for a mid-sized city. The population as a whole have no respect for the police. Albuquerque has had a lot of officer involved shootings, which in my opinion the majority were justified. In most cases, the subject pointed a gun at officers and they took action, but then after the fact, it comes out that the person was mentally ill and there is so much public outcry at the police, but never at the individual(s) who drew a gun on the officers in the first place. Without the support of its own citizens, Albuquerque is the Wild West and there is some crazy things that go on that justify “Breaking Bad” being based in Albuquerque. The violence is out of control to say the least but you’ll always hear people from there say “crime happens everywhere”……yes it does, but the statistics for Albuquerque’s crime rates do not match the size of the city itself.
FOOD, CULTURE, and WEATHER
Albuquerque (and New Mexico) has some of the best food anyone could ever ask for assuming they like spicy food. Red or Green Chile goes on everything and the food is something that I absolutely miss the most. Albuquerque’s climate is pretty amazing with something like 330+ days of sunshine per year, mountains right in your backyard. It is an outdoor person’s playground without a doubt and you won’t hear any argument from me when it comes to saying Albuquerque is probably the best training environment for athletes. As far as the culture goes, Hispanics are the majority and everything else is a minority. I never experienced any “racial” issues while living there but I will say that you do not often see Hispanic girls marry non-Hispanic guys. I heard this on another write up for Albuquerque and it has stuck with me because it is so true. New Mexican Hispanic families are probably the closest tight-knit group of people you’ll ever meet, which is by no means a bad thing, but there are a lot of Hispanic cliques that if you’re not in the clique, you’re a second class citizen. In living in the Midwest now, I see more neighbor and community oriented relationships but not remotely the amount of territorial cliques I saw and experienced in New Mexico (to include my own family).
EDUCATION AND GOVERNMENT
There’s not much to say about the public education system in New Mexico. It literally has to be in the lowest 5% in the entire country if not the lowest. I don’t know what the issue or solution is (although the teacher’s union comes to mind as the root cause of the problem), but the education system in New Mexico has always been horrific since I attended back in the 80s. The school system is run by corrupt and inept individuals who have ties to government officials which brings up the state of government. New Mexico’s lawmakers would make the mafia look like saints. One of the reasons why New Mexico is a complete disaster, and in my opinion a failed stated, is because of the massive amount of corrupt politicians. There are no laws that send dangerous criminals to prison for any long term periods. It is not remotely surprising to hear of murderers who have been convicted of murder in the past but got off because of a mistrial, the DAs office missed something, or something else that is hard to believe, but it happens all the time. Not to make light of the topic, but I know if I were a criminal, I’d go out of my way to commit my crimes in New Mexico because the likelihood of getting off or having a light sentence is in the criminal’s favor.
CLOSING
In summary, New Mexico is a beautiful state with lots of culture, and amazing food. That’s about it. The government, school systems, crime rates, and level of complacency in the culture was enough for my family to move to the Midwest where within 10 months find all members of my family thriving and doing things that were not possible in Albuquerque. It won’t take much Google searching to find other articles on the terrible education system, high amounts of random crime, or government corruption the plagues Albuquerque and New Mexico. It is certainly not a good place to raise kids and unless you have approximately $16-$24K per year for private school, your kids will be part of the broken education system that hasn’t been fixed nor improved in decades.