Without paying attention, Karen and I picked two of the most dangerous places on earth to live: Mexico and New Mexico. I’ve written often about how dangerous Mexico is for gringos like us (not), but New Mexico? How could a place that’s this beautiful be dangerous? Maybe its like the serial killer with a baby face (Ted Bundy)?
We knew nothing about NM when we moved here except where it was on the map, that we liked our house a lot, our mountains were beautiful, and ABQ seemed like a big enough city to have a restaurant or two.
Looking back, maybe we should have paid more attention to the fact that Breaking Bad (a TV series about a high school teacher turned meth gangster) takes place in Albuquerque(ABQ). It didn’t dawn on me that the neighborhood we regularly drive through to go food shopping, which the locals call “The War Zone” might be dangerous. I didn’t give it a second thought that one of the most popular museums in ABQ is… the Rattlesnake Museum. I recommend it highly.
The Land of Enchantment
Please don’t tell anyone about this, but New Mexico really is the Land of Enchantment (like everyone, we don’t want any more Californians:))). Our little town, Sandia Park, is drop dead gorgeous with sweeping vistas of mountains in all directions. As I write this, I’m looking out a back window toward the top of “our” mountain as clouds roll in, both bright white and dark blue. Weather changes here by the minute.
Go in any direction from ABQ and you’ll find every type of topography that really does fill the bill of “god’s country.” I touched on this in my Of Old Friends, Fast Cars and Cowboy Bars post of a month ago. North are the mountain ranges surrounding Santa Fe, Taos, and Red River. Going south past Mountainair’s grass lands quickly become the desert of White Sands national park and the deserts north of the Mexican border. East are prairie lands that have a strange “out there” pull that makes one wonder what it was like to live out here a hundred years ago. Going west brings the high, red plateaus of the northwest desert and mountains so high that they’e still full of snow as I write this in May
The Land of Contrasts
Perhaps like the rest of our country, NM is also the Land of Contrasts. It has just two large cities, ABQ and Santa Fe, located in the north central part of the state. Both are Blue with the rest of the state barely populated (sorry Truth or Consequences, Los Cruses or Farmington) and mostly solid Red. Total population of NM is 2M, which is less than half of Los Angeles and only 5% of California’s. But here’s the key to understanding NM, once you get out of ABQ and Santa Fe, there just aren’t many people around. Pop density in NM is 17 people per square mile, compared to California’s 254/mi and Florida’s 450.
Remote was the first word I used to describe NoHo (our house) to friends when we first moved here, after all we were five miles up a mountain road after you drove 25 minutes from ABQ. Now, I view it as civilization-adjacent because I’ve seen what real remote is (remember that 17 people/square mile is an average). There’s no anything 25 minutes away from these places except the occasional Dollar Store. I would no more drive down some of the dirt roads/driveways out there than I’d drive down the back roads in Sinaloa. Both are as likely to meet folks who don’t take too kindly to strangers.
Our “neighborhood” reflects these contrasts. Our closest neighbor is a scientist who works for Sandia National Labs, two other neighbors further over are lawyers (one from ABQ and the other from Dallas) and we can see very very large homes in the ridges in the other direction nestled around the state’s best golf course. Yet, go out our driveway onto the “main” mountain road and right there, across the road, are a couple of single wides with lots of abandoned cars in the yard. Go around another corner and there’s a place that has its address number blacked out with Do Not Trespass signs plastered all over. Go down the La Merada toward the Lazy Lizard and you’ll pass by a couple of micro farms with barns that are one strong wind storm away from falling down.
The Land of Danger
New Mexico is routinely ranked near the top of the most dangerous places to live in the U.S. (just below Alaska). We have twice the number of firearm deaths than the national average and NM is tied for the highest rate of violent crime in the US with … Alaska. Turn on the local news and the first ten minutes are full of car-jackings, robberies, shootings and murder in ABQ. Only then do we get what everyone tunes in for — the weather.
Remember those 17 people per square mile? Well, New Mexicans rank high on deaths of despair:
“In general, social isolation and economic challenges have made people living in rural areas especially vulnerable to so-called deaths of despair—those from overdoses, alcoholism and suicide. Motor vehicle deaths are almost twice as common in rural areas as urban ones, according to another NCHS analysis.Dec 14, 2022”
Crime is a local thing of course. Who cares if it happens across town in someone else’s neighborhood, right? A couple of days ago on NextDoor, a social network app for neighborhoods, amongst all the beauty shots of flowers blooming and cute animals were a couple of folks asking if anyone else had heard shots fired — like semi-automatic shots. One person responded that a 9mm had pierced his car (how do you tell its a 9mm?). When one looks at crime on the micro level, the good news is that we live in one of safest areas of all of NM. The bad news is just across our main mountain road begins one of the least safe areas.
How do you make sense of all of this?
Well, the obvious causes seem to be there: NM has the second lowest average household income in the US; literacy rates are at the bottom as well. Fewer people have a high school degree, and college graduates as a proportion are lower too. We have more than are fair share of screwed-over people (9% NM’s are Native Americans) with the highest percentage of Hispanics in the country. NM also has one of the highest income disparities between the rich and poor of any state in the US with the Top 5% of income earners having 15X the income of the bottom 5.
(Caveat here: Benjamin Disraeli is credited with the saying, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics”. Example: while New Mexico has the lowest literacy rate in the US, but who is ranked second lowest? California. One can pretty much make any argument backed up by a statistic. For that reason we need to take a look at the whole picture, which I think is pretty clear of New Mexico)
What’s Safe, Anyway?
No matter where one lives in the U.S., is it possible to feel safe with a mass shooting taking place literally every couple of days? Last week one occurred in Farmington, NM a town of 40K just 180 miles north of ABQ. In Mexico we read about shootings, kidnappings, and “disappearing” every week as well. While there are huge differences in criminal justice systems of Mexico and the U.S., I’m not sure one or the other is safer.
If you’re poor in Juarez or living in the War Zone in ABQ, danger probably feels the same. For the wealthy, safety probably feels the same whether its New Mexico or Mexico — they can afford to keep the bad guys away and have the means to protect themselves from trouble.
Karen and I are fortunate to be more the latter than the former. We have the means to keep the bad stuff at arms length. There aren’t any meth labs near us in Sandia Park (that we know of) and the local drug dealers in El Centro, Puerto Vallarta are of the benign variety.
We try not to be stupid in either place. To Karen’s constant irritation we drive a 1996 Jeep in Puerto Vallarta that no one notices or would want. We keep to gringo places and aren’t out a 2AM partying in the Romantic Zone. We don’t buy drugs from our local dealers, we just say “Hi” when we pass by. While traveling the roads in Mexico, we keep to the main highways and don’t go to places where our RV stands out like a Malibu mansion. We are friendly, respectful and curious about other people. We tend to greet people with a smile.
It’s much the same in New Mexico. We live out by ourselves and don’t see other people unless its the UPS driver or the Hoop House crew. I’ve now morphed into a Mountain Man, at least on the surface. No shirts with collars for me. (Well, for some reason we do standout at the Lazy Lizard but its no big deal. The typical Lazy Lizard patron looks different than us and visa versa, yet we’ve had nothing but great times as despite all of our differences, there are lots of commonalities). I never wear one of my half dozen expensive (fake) watches. We don’t drive down dirt roads out here unless invited. We can’t stay awake late enough to get into any trouble in ABQ.
Bottom line, we feel safe living in two of the most dangerous places on earth. Maybe familiarity breeds contentment. Who’s to know where’s safe anymore?
Anyway, I need to finish this as we’re going to the Smiths superstore in The War Zone in a couple of minutes.
Take care.
fred
News Flash: I just saw what must be a man-eating rabbit out my office window— he was as big as Squirt. If I run into him in person, I’ll be sure to yield the trail.
I couldn't help but notice the Jag. Is that an XK8 in zicon (sp?) blue maybe a 2002 model. It is a beautiful car and one of the things I miss from my past.
No place is safe. You must be ready at all times to defend yourself, family and friends. The police will not be there, it will be up to you. A year ago August, while anchored in the middle of the Sac River a man in his 20s, on drugs, swam to the boat and attacked us. First, he rested in the dingy tied behind the boat, we ordered him to stay where he was and we called the Sac Police, West Sac Police, Sheriffs' department in two counties and the Coast Guard. No one could help us. A lady friend on board continued to call for help as he attacked. He was repelled and knocked into the river twice, but continued his attack until he made it on board. A life or death struggle took place and he never stopped his attack. He never said a word, he only made animal sounds. While trying to constrain and subdue him he died. The West Sac Police finally showed up on shore and I had to go and get them with the dingy. The whole event reenforced the need to have situational awareness and to be prepared to defend yourself at all times. No one else will be there in time when something happens. We were lucky, it could have gone very differently. The Boy Scout moto I have follow my entire life paid off, "Be Prepared".