Albuquerque, not really such an ugly duckling

Albuquerque, not really such an ugly duckling

Many, if not most, New Mexicans consider Albuquerque a boring, if not outright ugly, city. But the New Mexicans that makes these claims suffer from a lack of perspective because of the gift of riches they enjoy that few other states can claim: almost limitless space, a proud and rich history, and a collection of national parks and monuments that requires a lifetime to visit and appreciate. I will show photographs and discuss some of these parks in other blogs, but, today, we want to give Albuquerque a chance to defend itself.

Albuquerque is the largest city in New Mexico. Of the 2 million inhabitants of New Mexico nearly half live in or around Albuquerque. With the capital, Santa Fe, only an hour away by car, comparisons begin immediately with Santa Fe's wonderful adobe architecture that pervades the city and it's amazing collection of art galleries rivaled only by New York. But fewer than 75,000 people live in or near Santa Fe. Albuquerque, on the other hand, is a working man's town, a business traveler's destination. The city proper has a population of about 525,000 with the surrounding towns of Corrales, Rio Rancho, Bernalillo, Placitas and Los Lunas bringing it up to 840,000 or so.

If you think about the area of New Mexico, which makes it the fifth largest state in the United States, you can imagine the vast tracks of empty land between the cities and towns of New Mexico. I have photographed many places in New Mexico in which the word “awesome” does not suffer from exaggeration, but Albuquerque always gets short shrift. Albuquerque is somehow the L.A. to Santa Fe's San Francisco. Santa Fe is considered beautiful, wealthy, artistic. Albuquerque is the place New Mexicans love to put down.

The photo slideshow at the top of this blog presents different aspects of Albuquerque from its architecture, to its impressive hot-air balloon culture, to its more quaint and, perhaps, sad, side. Albuquerque certainly has its seamy side with dirty, run-down and dilapidated, even crime-infested, neighborhoods. But it also has wonderful areas with stunning skies, mountains, art and architecture which is what I have chosen to show you.

Radzfoto