well you know, I have never met you so I dunno where you stand ethnically, but I'm pretty sure you would at the time have qualified as a young male, whose perceptions, I note, might be different. You seem to be having a little trouble with the subtleties of what I am saying too and yo're generally prety good at listening., so perhaps it's just that the topic is so fraught with personal experience that people have trouble hearing each other. Or maybe I just don't explain subtlety well. But sure, let's get specific for a moment. Where is it that we have violent crime in Albuquerque? Westgate, right, and out in Western Skies? On 57th north of Central? In the apartments in the low numbers on Texas and in the drug markets around San Pedro and Central? Then there is our very own serial killer but I don't think he would have affected the year Larry is citing, Nor that Bloomfield dude, that was doing home invasions for a bit, or the one who killed his wife because the lizard kings told him to. If you can believe the crime coverage in the Journal -- and I am an agnostic on this point -- usually it's knifings over a bottle of beer or something stupid, but here's my main point -- if you are a tourist here for a convention at the Hyatt you are not going to see any of that because it's all at least ten miles away. Your odds of being robbed at gunpoint are vanishingly small.
I grant you that the despair may be there in some parts of town. We lived over at 64th and Central for a while and while it was interesting as cultural anthropology I got the heck out when I overheard my daughter and her friend talking about the local gang and whether they should be west saiiideh. Hellno. Since then, let's see, that kid she was talking to got arrested for taking a knife to school and two boys have been shot at the Alamosa skate park over there, where James still goes to hang out at times. *He* might well agree with you about violence, especially since he goes to the one on Isleta as well. Out there on the west side, sure, a pretty teenaged girl can get shot for giggling at some tattooed guy's silly nickname (though that was not in Alamosa I don't think). But. The closest Albuquerque comes to the type of neighborhood I am talking about is Martineztown and Barelas and believe me, they don't begin to compare. Martineztown is a bit shabby and close to the edge of downtown; it even has a baby drug problem. But it's tiny and mostly populated with little old ladies who were born in those houses. I just lived there for almost a year and the first thing I did was lose the key. You can't get away with that in DC. Anyone I ever met who was doing the urban pioneer thing locked their door and had a burglar alarm too. We did have a cell phone disappear while we were there but even i can't take that seriously as a crime. Barelas now, Barelas might have qualified perhaps when you were growing up from what I hear, but I drive through it every day at all hours of the day and it's looking pretty gentrified now, and there are no drug markets like there were at 9th and U, though I hear that you might could get either high or arrested over by the rescue mission. (I don't try for either.) Barelas also does not contain any tourist hotels or yuppie condos. EDO begins to approach the flavor in a bijou kind of way but only because of those new condos for Californians, right next to all the homeless services. But those houses on Walter and High street are way too big, way too well-maintained on the whole, and too freaking expensive :) it is not a hood :) The War Zone on the othe hand *is* is a hood but no wide-eyed tourists are going to wander into it as it is quite clear what it is, day or night :) Capital Hill is more deceptive. I don't mean to condescend, but have you ever been to DC? If so, which parts? I am curious. Cause I have lived in a lot of cities, and no, they are not all the same. As I pointed out, a kid growing up here can get a lottery scholarship, and there is nothing like that in the cards in DC. I am no fan of UNMH at all but they do offer primary care, while in DC you'd have the ER at DC General or maybe Children's Hospital for a kid. Possibly my view of la famlia is idealized, but I don't think so. It's not that I don't see the bad stuff, the domestic violence and whatnot. I was thinking of a friend of mine who has been through some stuff in the past year, but has also been able to couch surf through a variety of relatives willing to pitch in a little to make things better ;P He's related ot one of the bigger families here so he has a LOT of relatives. He also gets a special rate on his insurance (cousin) and probably would on a lawyer too if he need one (uncle). Meanwhile, sure, there is a crime problem. Those statistics say so and you see some truly horrifying things in the papers at times.But those are per-capita rtes that Larry is waving around I belive, and those stats are for metropolitan statistical areas, while my comments referred to maybe a 15-block areai n DC ;) Larry is trying to refute them with statistics that include people from as mch as 100 miles away. I really don't think anything that aggregated can tell us much that is useful. What's the statistical area here? Albuquerque, Bernalillo County, Sandoval County and Valencia County? I am not going to look it up, but that is what I would guess. That just happens to be two-thirds of the population of the state, heheh, and the urban third most likely to get violent at that. But the violence here imho is largely testosterone-driven and targets drinking and smoking buddies far more frequently than random strangers. We get scattered shootings over this and that, mostly drugs, in the north and south valley, right, but I do not think it is dangerous to walk the streets here, even very late. You'd probably see winos and maybe hookers and transvestites depending on where you are. I think it is possible that somebody who is riding around looking for a fight to pick would pick one with you, but people don't bother me, personally, and I am in all of the neighborhoods I mentioned (except for Westgate) quite frequently. I also go the the Frontier late at night, which seems to be when and where that stuff happens. My theory is that you don't get experience points in whatever game the bangers play for harassing nice ladies who look like your mom, and so they don't bother. This would be true of most tourists as well. For the most part they pose no challenge and while they might have money that does not seem to usually be the point of crime around here. As mentioned, the ones who *are* after money get themselves elected to the State Senate and Treasury ;) Meanwhile, last CF-United a group of teenagers rushed the taxi I was sitting in, making jokes about carjacking Since the driver had his doors locked they playfully bounced the taxi a bit as if they were going to roll it. The driver did not think it was funny and I didn't either. The next day judith and I encountered a ginormous homeless guy who blocked our path and demanded money. It's a fine line between aggressive begging and robbery sometimes, and very fine indeed that night. So which is a more dangerous place if you're an outsider juggling children and strollers? I still go with DC, myself :) Over the last few years here, I have found that if I have car trouble. people stop and ask if they can help. Guys from the water department come over and push ::shrug:: I assume this is generally true since i don't think I have special powers in this regard, especially not based on location ;) , Reminds me of something I read recently on a forum: no sorry, you do not get street cred by growing up in Alameda. Oakland or not. I found that amusing but maybe you have to have seen the place ;) 2009 at 2:40 AM, denstar <[email protected]> wrote: > > On Tue, Aug 4, 2009 at 10:28 PM, Dana<[email protected]> wrote: > > > > Yes, I know. I even said that. > ... > > Location, location, location. =) > > I'm an old man now, so maybe this is a kinder, gentler 'burque... your > take on the town sounds pretty nice, compared to what I grew up in. > > DC *is* especially sad I guess, being our capital and all, choke-full > of our nation's leaders. > I can show you many places here that fit the same mold you give to DC tho. > > There's plenty of crack, smack, etc.. Plenty of drug-based crime. > Plenty of poverty. Kids raising kids, blah blah blah. > > And it's not "whitey", it's "white-boy", or "gringo". :-) > > In all serious-ness, tho, I'm pretty sure it boils down to this little > story: > > > Someone journeying north asks an old man along the path what the next > town is like. > > "What was the town you just came from like?" > > "It was horrible! Full of sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll." > > "The next town is much the same", the old man says. > > > Crap. There's a whole 'nuther half to that story, 'bout some other > dude traveling south, but I can't dredge it up right now. Basically > it is about perception. > > Ba-dum-dum! > > Yeah, I suck at punch-lines/fables. > > :] > > -- > One cannot always live in the palaces and state apartments of language, > but we can refuse to spend our days in searching for its vilest slums. > --William Watson > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Want to reach the ColdFusion community with something they want? Let them know on the House of Fusion mailing lists Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:301469 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5
