The 10 Most Dangerous And Worst Neighborhoods In Albuquerque, NM

The 10 Most Dangerous Neighborhoods In Albuquerque For 2024

Desert View might make a better name. But now we’re just nitpicking. The general point holds: this is way out of town. Mountain View sits at the southern tip of Albuquerque, down along I-25. You can find the Valle de Oro National Wildlife Refuge in the middle of the neighborhood.

If you like the isolation, this serves as the perfect home for you. However, if you want easy access to the amenities of city life, Mountain View will seem like a pain. You also might have trouble finding a job. The economy in the area leaves a lot to be desired, with an unemployment rate of 9.2% and a median income below $40,000.

If you like bike riding, you might find yourself peddling through Alta Monta. You can enjoy the North Channel Trail, which runs along the North Diversion Channel. It passes along the edge of the neighborhood, skimming the edge of Comanche South Park.

Feel free to bike on through. But you probably won’t be tempted to stop. The main issues come from the severe low wages in the area. The unemployment rate isn’t terrible at 6.3%. However, that doesn’t provide much solace when the median income only touches $35,551.

Yale Village must be filled with a bunch of geniuses, right? Maybe not Harvard Village-levels of accomplishment, but still extremely impressive.

Maybe, maybe not. The people of this Yale Village, located in the southeastern part of the city, may very well have high IQs. But they aren’t benefiting from the kinds of careers you’d expect in that Yale/Harvard strata. In fact, quite the opposite. The median income comes in at just $53,846.

Beyond the financial troubles, Yale Village falls short on many amenities. Located relatively far from the center of town, residents usually have to head out of the neighborhood to fill certain needs.

Albuquerque calls its airport a “Sunport.” That’s adorable. Following a similar pattern, Seattle should rename its aviation hub the “Rainport,” while L.A. might consider something like “Celebrityport.”

But giving something a cute name doesn’t make the underlying location more appealing. An airport is an airport, complete with traffic noise and all the other detriments that come with giant jets constantly coming and going.

Which brings us to Kirtland Community, located just north of the Sunport, along I-25. Along with its unfortunate neighbor, residents also have to deal with a sluggish economy and a lack of amenities.

From just the name, Wildflower sounds like an excellent location. Like living in a unkempt garden, or in a hippie commune. In real life, though, this ranks as the number 9 worst neighborhood in Albuquerque for 2024.

What makes it so difficult to live here? The economy, for one thing. The median income sits at $40,949 and the unemployment rate comes in at 3.6%. There are other problems as well. Wildflower is located on the far northern end of town, far away from the heart of the city and all its related attractions.

Barelas sits along the Rio Grande River, south of the downtown area. Head a little north along Tingley Dr. and you’ll get to the Albuquerque Zoo. However, a quick trip east will drop you into the Albuquerque Rail Yards. That’s probably a better indication of the vibe of the neighborhood.

Ultimately, Barelas lands on this list as the number 10 worst area in Albuquerque for 2024 because of its economy. The unemployment rate is elevated at 6.4%. Residents also have trouble with the cost of living. The median home value only hits $202,640, not a huge price tag in most markets. However, when the local median income only reaches $42,865, this becomes a difficult mortgage to manage.

Methodology: How we determined the most dangerous Albuquerque neighborhoods in 2024

To figure out how bad a place is to live in, we only needed to know what kinds of things people like and then decide what places have the least amount of those things. We plugged the following criteria into Saturday Night Science to get the worst neighborhoods in Albuquerque:

• High crime (Estimated)
• High unemployment (Less jobs)
• Low median income (Less pay)
• Low population density (No things to do)
• Low home values (No one’s willing to pay to live here)

Then, we ranked each neighborhood in Albuquerque, New Mexico for each of these criteria from worst to best.

Next, we averaged the individual rankings for each criterion into a “Worst Score.”

The neighborhood with the lowest “Worst Score” ranks as the most dangerous neighborhood of Albuquerque.

The article is an opinion based on facts and is meant as infotainment. We updated this article for 2024. This report is our time ranking the worst neighborhoods to live in Albuquerque.

Skip to the end to see the list of all 187 neighborhoods ranked from worst to best.