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PaperclipPerfector  6d ago (text post)   19580 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 20, 2026

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These charts comparing cities in the Southwest are the ones that stuck in my mind. 2023-24 data, so things might have changed since then, but ABQ is pretty bad. I'd note, though, that the comparison doesn't include Bakersfield, which ABQ recently surpassed for most car thefts per capita and is by all accounts a dreadful place.

Edit: and I'll have to look on a computer later, but everything I'm finding on a quick phone search is saying ABQ still has almost double the crime rates of SF.

I wonder how much that is influenced by locality / microenvironmental factors that aren't shown in the statistics. Eg. Finland used to have a fairly high homicide rate (compared to peer countries) while actually being a very safe place to live as long as you weren't a middle aged unemployed alcoholic male drinking with your buddies.

It's not completely random that Breaking Bad took place there, I will be very concerned and possibly move if my kids seem interested in drugs.

And funnily enough, it was originally supposed to take place in Bakersfield, but switched to ABQ due to New Mexico tax incentives.

There's a lot of variance from year to year, especially since Covid (Wiki's list is mostly 2021 data, in which Las Vegas "beat" Albuquerque by a couple homicides-per-100k, but both rates have dropped drastically since), but the Southwest is pretty free from the worst violence hotspots on the whole. After Vegas and Albuquerque the worst time-averaged homicide rate might be Denver, and it's way down the list for cities of its size.

ABQ still has almost double the crime rates of SF.

I wouldn't be surprised. SF has had some really high-profile but limited problems (We stopped bothering to prosecute car break-ins and for some inexplicable reason there was a long rash of car break-ins! After we figured out that crime is just caused by poverty, did anyone remember to tell the criminals?) but even bad enforcement has to do a lot of work to cancel out a selection effect as strong as "being able to afford to live in SF".

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