Suggestions for open-minded liberal-leaning ABQ neighborhoods? (Albuquerque, South Valley: appointed, apartment, crime rate)
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hey all! i've seen some threads about this topic but they all seem to be about 8 years old... and more recent ones don't seem to reference neighborhoods. sorry if i'm blind, if there are already threads about this, please link me to them!
i was born and raised in berkeley, went to santa cruz, lived in NYC for a few years, then back to berkeley, and i am ready to leave the hustle and traffic and pretentiousness and PRICE of the bay area behind me. i have always loved the southwest and i feel like albuquerque is calling me for a good number of reasons. i'm a single mom with a 4 year old daughter. i have a good job making $100K+ (poverty wages in the sf bay area if you're a single mom), and i can work remotely from anywhere in the US near an airport, so jobs are not an issue (knock wood).
i've been spending approx 3 hours a day on zillow recently, and then everytime i google for the kind of neighborhood i would like, i end up on this site. so i thought i'd finally sign up and ask my question
i AM coming to visit soon but i am wondering if any of you have advice for neighborhoods.
what i'm looking for:
- a single family home (3 bd probably) with a backyard, maybe with a view or close to the river or parks, but i know natural beauty is everywhere in NM. maybe somewhere near horse farms (north valley? corrales?) those places in the NE overlooking the sandia mountains look gorgeous, but are they mostly conservative? i've also read that rio rancho is more conservative as well.
- i'd love one of those pueblo style houses - they are so beautiful - are they only clustered in certain areas like sandia heights or... paradise hills, maybe? sorry, been on zillow too much.
- can be close to town or on the outskirts, i like the idea of a place with a more "country" feel, but i don't want to be super isolated and would like to be able to walk to a nearby park or store or something. i could do suburbs too as long as we have a big backyard
- good schools (7-8 or higher on greatschools) that are also diverse and balanced... maybe roughly equal percentages white and latino (i've seen there are not many black or asian people in ABQ). and that are not super conservative.
- not a super high crime rate (i've read the SE can be not so great), but not a super-wealthy gated community, either. just a regular house on a nice street with chill neighbors.
- a neighborhood that's more democrat-leaning than republican. i know NM is a purple state, and ABQ is a purple city, and i'm actually looking forward to living in a place with a more easy-going, balanced view of politics. but... i was raised in berkeley, and don't want to live or raise my kid in a neighborhood that's filled with gun racks, SUVs, blocks of Trump signs and/or homophobia. i'm not looking for some burning man-farmers market-barefoot-bernie-drum circle scene either (although i'm sure there are areas like that near the college and nob hill that we can visit!)
i guess i'm looking for... a neighborhood that's just open minded and chill, where no conservatives will look at me weird or call me a muslim-sympathizer for putting clinton signs in my yard or hanging rainbow crystals in my windows, and no ultra-liberals will lecture me about how childhood vaccinations are a conspiracy created by big pharma or give me dirty looks for buying non-organic produce (i've definitely had enough of that here).
a place where i can find *some* like-minded folks, with a big yard where we can have cats and a dog and maybe some chickens (my kid LOVES animals), and maybe near horse barns/ranches where we could board a horse. in a good school district.
ok... i think that's it. thank you for your attention
Neighborhoods that would probably work for you: Nob Hill, most of Northeast heights. Probably a bunch of others I'm not so familiar with. I don't have time to dig too much, so here is an old post that collects some neighborhood-related threads:
I don't think the chances of politically confrontational speech from neighbors and random strangers is very high here. I have all kinds of crazy political bumperstickers on my car, and nobody has ever accosted me in a parking lot or anything like that.
It's not clear to me how much you want to insulate yourself from political views you don't like and from lifestyles (SUV's, gun racks) which you don't approve of or don't like. You say you don't want a whole neighborhood of that sort of thing, but how much of it would be too much for you? It really is pretty live and let live here, but that goes in more than one direction.
I haven't seen any Trump signs. I don't think I've seen any Trump bumperstickers. I've hardly seen any Hillary signs or bumperstickers either. I see Bernie bumperstickers all the time. I think an expression of pro-Trump sentiment would probably be more likely to lead to hostility just about anywhere in this city than pro-Hillary expressions.
By the way, we have Muslims in Albuquerque, sometimes in hijab. For the most part they seem to do alright, although there are occasional incidents. A Christian Iraqi woman (a refugee I think) was assaulted once by an anti-Muslim man here, in her own house if I remember correctly. (It's perversely funny how often hate-motivated attackers can't even attack the "right" targets: nationally speaking, Sikhs, Mizrahi Jews for Israel, and of course non-Muslim Arabs have all been victims of anti-Muslim attacks.)
As gets said a lot on this board, you need to visit. There is a vibe here that is sometimes difficult to capture. I don't think you'd be asking some of these questions if you spent some time here.
There's a bit of difference in spatial reasoning between California and NM that you never quite realize exists until you live in both places.
Travel 10 minutes at 55mph in any part of the bay and you will pass hundreds of thousands of people on the left and right, their homes, their workplaces.
Travel 10 minutes at 65mph in the middle of Albuquerque and you will pass fewer.
Travel 10 minutes at 75mph in a random part of New Mexico and you will probably pass fewer than 10,000.
It's as if the laws of time and space are different between the two. Everything's compressed in California. Everything's expanded out here.
I offer this example to point out that one part of Albuquerque is not anywhere near as different from the next part as two adjoining areas in the BA. This goes for culture, people, income range, conformity, and even climate. They do differ, but not as much as what you're used to. As such, looking for neighborhoods that "fit" you is kind of a wasted effort here, at least compared to where you're coming from. It's almost true that all the neighborhoods are the same as far as the mix of people you find in them.
Probably best to just focus on the fundamentals- how big a house, how close to amenities, how much it costs. Don't worry about how conservative areas are or are not- people can be super-nice or super-jerks and be anywhere on the political spectrum here. I will tell you that there are a lot of super-nice people though (just mostly not all that outgoing).
Crime culture also really varies- BA has extremes but no real middle when it comes to crime. You can leave your $10k bike unlocked on the Stanford campus and no one will take it for weeks. You can get mugged in most denser places in the bay area at any time of day, whereas actual random muggings in Albuquerque are pretty uncommon by comparison, and home break-ins can occur anywhere but tend to cluster in certain neighborhoods. Albuquerque's pretty middle for crime (high-risk behavior tends to be a much bigger correlation here than you're probably used to).
As someone with relatives who own horses- horses are jerks (and the first people to tell you are the people who own them). May want to consider an exurb south of the city like Los Lunas, Belen, or Socorro; housing costs are lower, houses are bigger, crime rates are comparable, and horses are easier to take care of.
Gun racks- never see them.
SUV's- are you kidding? I own two and I'm well on the liberal end of the spectrum here. A look on any random street or parking lot and what you'll find are trucks and SUV's- the rare things are little sensible cars (except the ones that are 20+ years old). You may learn to love the SUV (and you want horses? Little disconnect there..). Remember, driving 10 miles a week in an SUV uses less gas than 120 miles a week in an econobox.
Trump posters- not seeing too many of those here.
I think most New Mexicans look at politics as being dirty and beneath them. They may bristle at your bumper sticker, but more because you took the time to put a political sign on your car rather than whether it fits with their politics. There's a cognitive dissonance that drives people in ultra-red and ultra-blue areas where they "don't want to have to see" things they disagree with, but want to be around the like-minded. That's not going to fly here.
One other detail- Clinton bumper stickers I've seen: 0. Sanders bumper stickers I've seen: hundreds.
In the end, you need to shut your laptop and actually come out here, walk in a few different houses in a few different neighborhoods, and/or airbnb a few different properties while you drive around different neighborhoods. Our advice will pale in comparison to first-hand experience.
They may bristle at your bumper sticker, but more because you took the time to put a political sign on your car rather than whether it fits with their politics.
Honestly, I regret putting any bumperstickers on my car at this point. I've never owned a car before and somehow didn't think through whether I wanted to be a moving billboard all the time. Next car I buy will have no bumperstickers. I feel the need to express my political views but I think it's kind of a stupid way to do it and feels very un-New Mexican. Unless I were an activist or something.
Incidentally, my next door neighbor was a Romney supporter and so far we haven't keyed each others cars.
As far as Bernie, I think we should tell you the full truth: central Albuquerque is now under the control of Bernie Bro street militias.
This may be me being romantic, but I still think that some of New Mexico's often quasi-cosmopolitan tolerance derives from this history:
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While the independence of many pueblos from the Spaniards was short-lived, the Pueblo Revolt gained the Pueblo Indians a measure of freedom from future Spanish efforts to eradicate their culture and religion following the reconquest. Moreover, the Spanish issued substantial land grants to each Pueblo and appointed a public defender to protect the rights of the Indians and argue their legal cases in the Spanish courts. The Franciscan priests returning to New Mexico did not again attempt to impose a theocracy on the Pueblo who continued to practice their traditional religion
It's true that in the aftermath of the Pueblo Revolt multiculturalism and tolerance were to a certain extent enshrined in Spanish law. New Mexico also lucked out after the Mexican War when the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo recognized Spanish land grants and modes of governance, essentially endorsing the pre-war multicultural reality of Spanish and Mexican New Mexico. In Texas, by contrast, Spanish land grants were not recognized and the land was patented and sold off, sometimes (literally) out from under existing Hispano or Indian communities.
Even without taking the Pueblo Revolt into consideration, though, Spanish New Mexico was a very diverse, multicultural place. In addition to the diverse Pueblo (19-21 villages in New Mexico from the 1700s onward, 5 distinct languages) and Spanish (which included people of French, Basque, Portuguese, Italian and crypto-Jewish extraction as well as peninsular Spaniards) populations, the New Mexico colony was surrounded by nomadic Native groups like the Navajos, Apaches, Utes and Comanches who regularly came in to raid or trade. And many "Hispanic" communities like Abiquiu or Belen were actually founded by Genizaros, who were Indian captives forcibly converted to Christianity and then encouraged to blend in to Spanish society.
As to your question, OP: the university/Nob Hill area, Corrales, Old Town, the areas between Old Town and Downtown, or Downtown itself seem like they'd suit you well. Also, the South Valley is very hit-or-miss, as a lot of other threads here will tell you, but if you do some searching around and find the right place I think it might be just the mix you want. Old Hispano neighborhoods/villages, meandering farm roads, lots of artists and hippies and do-it-yourself urban organic farms/modern homesteaders. Some poking around will be necessary but if you're up for it there are a lot of diamonds in the rough out there for someone looking for the things on your list.
It's not clear to me how much you want to insulate yourself from political views you don't like and from lifestyles (SUV's, gun racks) which you don't approve of or don't like. You say you don't want a whole neighborhood of that sort of thing, but how much of it would be too much for you? It really is pretty live and let live here, but that goes in more than one direction.
good question! i guess when i say liberal-leaning neighborhood i imagine like... 60% dem/liberal and 40% rep/conservative? i am totally willing to live in a politically diverse place, and think it would be intellectually interesting, and refreshing to talk with people who don't ALL agree with me
i don't really want to "insulate" myself, as much as i just don't want to be in a place where we are the ONLY liberals, and where my daughter would experience/learn a significant amount of intolerance (towards race, gender, sexual orientation, etc). i want a tolerant neighborhood, i guess, and i'm a tolerant person too... i live in the bay area but travel all over the USA for my job and have met some of the nicest people in the most conservative areas. in fact, my ultra-liberal bay area friends often get mad at me for preaching tolerance towards republicans! i believe that most people are good at heart and want the best for their country and their kids, regardless of their political party. i just don't want us to experience ostracism, and i don't want my kid to be taught in school that, say, gay people are going to hell, etc.
again, i live in a liberal bubble, so this is probably just my own projection of my own fears, and probably most people in ABQ don't say things like that to kids (i hope?) and all this fear is unfounded. but that's why i'm on this board, to ask
"(It's perversely funny how often hate-motivated attackers can't even attack the "right" targets: nationally speaking, Sikhs, Mizrahi Jews for Israel, and of course non-Muslim Arabs have all been victims of anti-Muslim attacks.)"
right? i remember right after 911, some stupid white boys near us (in concord, maybe) went and killed an INDIAN (from india) 7-11 clerk. duh, people, if you're going to be intolerant murderous bigots, at least figure out who you hate!
Travel 10 minutes at 55mph in any part of the bay and you will pass hundreds of thousands of people on the left and right, their homes, their workplaces.
Travel 10 minutes at 65mph in the middle of Albuquerque and you will pass fewer.
Travel 10 minutes at 75mph in a random part of New Mexico and you will probably pass fewer than 10,000.
It's as if the laws of time and space are different between the two. Everything's compressed in California. Everything's expanded out here.
yes, i've spent a lot of time in scottsdale for work, and am blown away by the difference. so much space! so much sky! it's gorgeous! but too republican and too hot. jeez, stepping out of that airport in july is like... nothing i've ever experienced before.
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I offer this example to point out that one part of Albuquerque is not anywhere near as different from the next part as two adjoining areas in the BA. This goes for culture, people, income range, conformity, and even climate. They do differ, but not as much as what you're used to. As such, looking for neighborhoods that "fit" you is kind of a wasted effort here, at least compared to where you're coming from.
ok, then, which areas get the least hot in summer? seriously, that is one of my biggest criteria; i know it doesn't get over 100 that often, but the coolest area would probably work the best for us.
Quote:
SUV's- are you kidding? I own two and I'm well on the liberal end of the spectrum here. A look on any random street or parking lot and what you'll find are trucks and SUV's- the rare things are little sensible cars (except the ones that are 20+ years old). You may learn to love the SUV (and you want horses? Little disconnect there..).
ok, i am a wide-eyed baby when it comes to these things, so please excuse my ignorance. i've never had a horse or been around horse people, but i want to learn because my kid does, and also because i've always wanted to, but have always lived in very urban/suburban areas. but why are SUVs and horses a disconnect? do you carry the horses *in* the SUVs? and why does everyone need SUVs? i only have the one kid so we just have a little honda fit and i love it... especially because it's a stick shift also you can park it ANYwhere (very good for downtown parking in SF or oakland).
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Trump posters- not seeing too many of those here.
thank the gods.
Quote:
One other detail- Clinton bumper stickers I've seen: 0. Sanders bumper stickers I've seen: hundreds.
As far as Bernie, I think we should tell you the full truth: central Albuquerque is now under the control of Bernie Bro street militias.
heh, again, same in the bay area. they have also taken over my facebook feed. and i LOVE me some bernie. i just hope - as the lifelong democrat i am - that if he doesn't become the nominee, people will suck it up and vote for clinton in november. i know she's bought (like basically every other politician except, well, bernie) and has some hawkish philosophies and other faults, but to me they pale in comparison to what trump would bring us. the "no muslims allowed in america" quote alone is just the ripest ISIL recruitment material i've ever heard. and talk about how all those politicians are bought... he's in the class that BUYS them! plus like, the supreme court, women's rights, LGBTQI rights, voting rights, acknowledgment of climate change, etc, etc. democrat, please. even if it's not bernie
ok. /end election politics. but thank you for telling me the truth
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