How do you all feel about the more personal crimes, as opposed to property crimes. Is it generally safe for a woman to go hiking alone on the trail system? If I'm walking the dogs at night in my neighborhood, is that something that would give you pause?
For me, once of the draws of ABQ is the hiking and nature. If I won't be free to enjoy that without fear and hyper vigilance, that would make a move there much less attractive.
I don’t think that there is a place in the US where that’s safe.
I live in a very cold and boring small city and a woman was attacked on the bike/hike trail last year.
Statistically speaking, most of the crime in Albuquerque is either directed (from an enemy, frequently a household member), or drug or profit related.
The directed crime problem cannot be understated. If you have a person living in your house, or next door, who is a tantrum artist or who has gang or drug connections, your odds of being the victim of a crime go through the ceiling. Most burglaries here are committed by someone the victim knows. My adopted daughter, who went through a period of very low standards in her choice of companions, indirectly caused my home to be vandalized. It would have been burglarized too had I not been home that day to catch the hapless wanna-be thuglet and let the Venomous Spaz Beast frighten him out of his wits with her presa canario impression. When my daughter reached the age of legal majority and I executed Escape Plan Alpha, I no longer had problems with lowlifes.
Drug and profit related crime happens a lot, yet there has to be a target of opportunity. So you see a lot of theft, a lot of carjacking, a lot of bank robbery, and convenience store or fast food restaurant robbery is so common that they had to start completely shutting down restaurant space and going through drive-in only. It is pretty traumatic the first time it happens, or so my young pizza-chain-working colleague assures me. After a while people just stop reacting because they're used to it. Putting my vehicle in a garage at night, and driving a Mustachian car that no self-respecting thief would want to be seen in, have been effective defenses against vehicle theft and carjacking.
I have to admit that my line of work doesn't expose me to much gun violence, except one time my vehicle was shot at from a concealed position as I was driving home from the gym through a residential neighborhood nest to a school. It wasn't a very good shot but it took out a window of my vehicle and ticked me off. The police did nothing, obviously, but I never did find the shooter despite placing ads and actively hunting him/her/them for about a month.
On the trails there's less scope for crimes of opportunity because there's nothing to steal for a fast profit and no easy getaway. A lot of people carry concealed and a few even have a permit to do so. It's best to vary your route and to not be too predictable. If you have dogs, they are an outstanding crime deterrent.
I'm not a target for anti-female crime because I tend to be, well, not invisible but I tend to pass unnoticed. I'm told that my build and energy from a distance reads more "dude" than anything else, and my avoidant personality pushes other people away. So I've had no problem hiking solo, prowling around any part of Albuquerque I wish, day or night, on the trails or off. Of course I also had no trouble taking public transit in Watts at 2 AM on a weekend, so like I say: I'm not a target. This means people who do belong to the target group have more credibility than me when they speak on the subject.
Tantrum artistry is still an issue for those who drive in public, because a bullet doesn't care who it hits. There are some drug-addled boneheads who are convinced that waving a gun around and firing shots off will compensate for their lack of endowment in other areas. They haven't killed each other off yet because there's a bit of a cultural machismo thing and there's always a new generation of tantrum artists. Over-policing is an issue in the poorer neighborhoods.
The best places to live in Albuquerque are in areas where a fast getaway is hard, there's good lighting, and the neighbors have mutually agreed to come pouring out of the houses at the first sign of trouble. Some of them bring cameras; others bring something with a bit more firepower. Nobody really thinks they'll get away with seriously antisocial stupidity. In our neighborhood we've kept the cartels out along with two biker gangs. We seldom need police help or backup because the community-based anarchic approach has been working better. There are a few rare exceptions where idiocy has to be corrected, like the mad dog incident this April, but that's the exception and not the rule. Sadly, the public transit system is more than a hundred years behind the times and deteriorating by leaps and bounds. Most of the neighborhoods considered "safe" aren't connected to public transit. The newer developments tend to be very stroad-based and suburban.
The military base is also an example off a community with good standards. There are some gated communities, some neighborhoods like mine, and a few semi-rural areas where people mostly keep to themselves.
You might like the area just over the mountain. Edgewood, Sandia Park, and some of the other small towns are far more peaceful in terms of human drama although it gets snowy in the winter and there's sometimes a bear or other assertive wildlife.
Basically, before buying property here, field test it for a year or two.
