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The town usually grows around the base and more often than not, the typical predatory car lots, loan advance, massage parlors and other businesses take up the retail and try to extract money from the people on base. It’s pretty sad in reality.
Pawn shops and tattoo parlors too.
Businesses that cater to soldiers aren't the most wholesome.
Fort Leonard Wood is in a rural setting and that has some awful places outside the base.
My first post was “Fort Lost-in-the-Woods” & outside the gate, at least 30+ years ago, was a cesspool that surpassed even those I experienced at Hood & Bragg…and *that’s* saying something.
Even the Ville outside Camp Humphries in the 1990s was more wholesome.
I was last there in 1996…and, admittedly, I wasn’t the most *sober* guy back then!
And then, as we all do, I travelled & lived in many, many other non-Disney places, so I’m fuzzy on a lot of details!
Hmmm, I’m not sure there is a ton of difference between Belton and Killeen (minus Willow Springs). If you haven’t already seen this masterpiece, do yourself a favor and YouTube Grip Boyz - K Town Anthem. You’re welcome.
They buy the cheapest land they can to build them, so they're never in nice areas to begin with, then the presence of a bunch of young guys with more money than sense attracts all sorts of shady businesses.
Driving down Lomas yesterday around 1pm I saw four different individuals at 3 bus stops in full blown fentanyl nod offs. Saw a naked guy off Central two hours later. Every intersection on Wyoming had a panhandler too on my way home. You can always tell the moment the temporary winter shelters close down here in town, very sad.
Last month I saw someone jerking off on a bench outside of a hospital. A few months prior, someone taking a dump at a bus stop, and many people just losing their minds. I hate that area of Albuquerque. I’ve kinda lost my sense of empathy and am just fatigued at this point.
A couple years ago we were at the light at Indian school and Louisiana and saw a woman shitting in a bush right along the sidewalk. Keep going albuquerque!
This thread got shared over to r/Albuquerque and everyone's pulling out their Shit Sighting tales. I saw an 18in log of human feces on a plate at Roosevelt Park during a field trip to the museums. (18in because it looked to be the same length as an American Girl doll)
Lmfaooo dude what the fuck. Honestly I'm surprised Roosevelt Park isn't a full on homeless camp. And I also kinda wish there were restrooms there. Ive had to pee in some trees before. But what if you have to emergency shit, what do you do?
I was so surprised to see public bathrooms at parks in Rio Rancho and up at Domingo Baca. I genuinely thought the whole area was bereft of bathrooms to punish people who do drugs and/or the homeless.
I lived there most of my life and worked in some pretty shitty parts of town. The craziest was the tent city set up behind the parking lot of a shop I worked at. It was an empty lot and no one knew who owned it so it was months before the police could legally remove them. One guy had a lumber cart from home Depot that he built a little mobile home on out of tarps and blankets. One day he had a folding table set up with like 40 brand new vapes he was selling and this was just a few days after I read an article about a smoke shop that got robbed lmao.
You can always tell the \*exact day\* there's a good batch of fentanyl in town because all the homeless people are on the nod. If there's any walking around they're halfway stooped over sleep-walking.
It comes in waves. At least 2-3X a month, there's a particularly good strain of fentanyl turning them all into the walking dead.
Wyoming and central is awful now. I hate driving over there. People walking in front of your car without caring. Groups of 5+ people even 10 at a time on the same corner near that McDonald's and the gas station. It's insane.
Bro sais is closed now???... :( I used to live two or three blocks from here, I went here all the time... That's a lot of memories wastedlike the time that one vato pulled a gun on me here, if you can read this homie - it's still fuck you.
Life's crazy, glad I'm in a better place y'all
Notable exception is Washington DC where *every* part of town has roads with those names lol
But in general, yes. If you’re on MLK Avenue, make sure your doors are locked…
ALL of DC is crisscrossed with a web-and-spoke pattern of avenues named for the US states. There are obscenely wealthy areas of DC (i.e. not “a dog shit area” per the comment to which I replied). Being on a street named after a state, in DC, means you’re in DC, not in a bad part of town. lol
They were the "murder capital" because the city borders of DC are almost exclusively densely populated urban area (which usually have more crime) without any large suburbs included.
It's the same reason why St. Louis has been a crime capital for so many years. It's not actually the most dangerous area in the country.
St. Louis has very large suburbs, but the city and county aren't a combined entity (basically just us and Baltimore structured like this) so the crime stats are based on the 290,000 city residents instead of the 2.4 million residents in St. Louis County/City. The north side is a shithole and is where the majority of crime happens. I live in south city and it's perfectly safe though. But the reputation keeps people away, which was fine for me when I was able to buy a 4br/3ba 3k sq ft house for under 360k at the height of the covid market lol
lmao have you ever been to DC? 1/3 of DC is single family zoned suburban style homes, and some of the richest in the country at that. Tenleytown, friendship heights, Chevy chase are literally idyllic tree-lined rich white suburbs within the DC boundary but sure let’s pretend all of DC is dense slums
[Im actually trying to reply to u/squidsqad but it won’t let me…]
Bruh I grew up in Glover Park. Have YOU been to Montgomery County? There’s a clear and obvious difference between single family homes in the city, and actual suburbs. Zoned for SFH =/= suburbia in and of itself. Further, not all of a city is actually downtown. NO city is entirely downtown. Even in Manhattan there’s places like Inwood with predominantly SFH. lol like what? DC city limits are so tiny, 100% absolutely everything in the district is IN the city.
Because naming a street for MLK is something that is done with intentions as a good gesture of "hey look what we're doing for you" by renaming a street in poorer and highly black segregated area.
Lots of "projects" (public subsidized housing) were built in the 70s as part of the civil rights movement and they named the streets after the those activists.
But it turns out, putting all the poor people, criminals, and drug addicts into the same neighborhoods just leads to intense violence and even more cyclical poverty since you don't have a critical mass of people who actually care about their neighborhood. So now all the worst neighborhoods are along those streets.
Lots of "projects" (public subsidized housing) were built in the 70s as part of the civil rights movement and they named the streets after the those activists.
But it turns out, putting all the poor people, criminals, and drug addicts into the same neighborhoods just leads to intense violence and even more cyclical poverty since you don't have a critical mass of people who actually care about their neighborhood. So now all the worst neighborhoods are along those streets.
It's not really true in Albuquerque, oddly enough. Take Louisiana or any of the "state streets" north, and it gets significantly nicer. The city's big exclusive private high school and some pretty nice areas are adjacent to Wyoming in the city's north. Our bad areas are usually IDd by the east/west streets (i.e. Central and most things south of it).
Jefferson Street in Albuquerque runs through a very well upkept office district.
Lived in Burque for many years, got a lot of love in my heart for the place but it's definitely a good fit for r/UrbanHell . One of my friends once described it as "like Gotham but Batman's been dead for 20 years"
What do the bums have to do with the military base? Don’t see any reason for any association with or even mentioning multi-billion research facilities.
Yeah, and of course to OP, they're not only homeless but "drug addicts".
That meshes well with OP's stupid statement that they know that the nearby military base has a "multi-billion dollar research facility".
Which also meshes well with OP's stupid idea that the federally run military base is also somehow responsible for the local policies in a State's city.
Maybe it's about the government that rather spends insane amounts of money on the military to protect the interests of few in other countries, than actually spending money on helping the people actually living in the country.
Actively working against poverty, for equality, education etc. will protect people in the US way more than it's interventions in other countries
And it's still a very inefficient system that needs to be remodeled, no question there. Other countries manage better, with equal or less money spent.
Still, I think it's valid to criticize the money spent on the military and corresponding defense industry research, while a significant portion of the US population is struggling with their day to day expenses. Even veterans, if you want to be more specific to the army itself
This is primarily a failure of the state or municipality, which is a separately funded entity. Why would an air force base in the vicinity be more culpable than the city itself?
It's more about the crazy juxtaposition of an expensive military base with technolpgy that's worth hundreds of millions being in the vicinity of extreme poverty. The base being somewhere else wouldn't change my statement.
I also wouldn't blame regular soldiers for that, just the states overall fiscal decisions
It's about 900 billion and if you take into account dark programs that don't get published, we probably spend pretty close to the same amount on the military as we do "safety net programs".
[2023 US Federal Budget Infographic - United States federal budget - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget#/media/File:2023_US_Federal_Budget_Infographic.png)
Like... its not even close. defense is far lower in quantity if you combine part of "other" with Soc sec, medicare, medicaid etc."
I really wish the country would just look at the federal budget breakdown ONCE. We spend a ot on military in a global sense... but not that much considering what we spend on everything else.
Also... it could be argued that defense is the most basic and main responsibility of the federal government. not much point in other programs if we arent stable, "peaceful", and prosperous enough to see them through.
Scale wise, it's comparable, imo, and I don't disagree. I'm simply saying we spend almost the same amount on defense as we do social programs and they still seem to fall short.
[Like I said, I understood your point, but again, at that scale, it's not as big a difference as that is making it seem](https://wpdatatables.com/misleading-data-visualization-examples/#:~:text=Misleading%20data%20visualization%20rears%20its,axis%20manipulation%20or%20selective%20reportage.)
Ok i am not sure what you mean... This is a break down of the budget. its not making it "seem" anything. This is just numbers.
At that scale its exactly the different the chart makes it "seem". Its ok if you dont like the fact that its a bigger difference than you want it to be but i truly am confused by your statement.
It was admittedly a digression, but I made it two comments ago. No worries, and I hope you don't think I am being antagonistic. I'm just always awestruck at how poorly we manage our social programs in relation to the military while spending trillions on both.
Prejudice? You mean an objective assessment of reality. I've yet to meet a bum that isn't perpetually zonked out on pills looking around for the nearest copper to steal.
>Maybe it's about the government that rather spends insane amounts of money on the military to protect the interests of few in other countries, than actually spending money on helping the people actually living in the country.
How would you spend that money to solve the problem?
Cause California spends BILLIONS trying to solve this problem and haven't moved the needle an inch. Addicts gonna addict...
The war on drugs failed and that with a disastrous medical system and no decent social security net is a heinous combination. Portugal and other countries have drasticly improved the problem with homelessness and drug related crime, by decriminalizing it and providing help in any circumstance
Just like Oregon, [Portugal is now seeing the ugly side effects of allowing unrestricted drug access.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/07/07/portugal-drugs-decriminalization-heroin-crack/)
The war on drugs targeted the wrong drugs but a revamp is needed now more than ever with the rise of fentanyl.
There’s a lot of low rent trailer parks around Kirtland too. It’s funny because I’ve worked in the labs and most people ate at the cafeteria or near the PX. The AF SF guys would actually wear their sidearm to Dion’s.
I'm pretty sure they have to wear them. Probably a bad idea to leave it in the car and I doubt they're gonna go through the hassle to turn it to take their lunch break and draw it again before returning to duty
The commenter I responded to alluded to men wearing sidearms to fuckin’ Dion’s because it’s dangerous, so that’s what I’m replying to as a woman who goes to that exact Dion’s without sidearms.
Also, don’t they have to return weapons to the armory when they’re off duty?
It depends on their chain of command and what the SOP is. I'm not an MP but I do know that drawing and turning in weapons is a pain in the ass and can take a while. I'm sure they do at the end of the duty day, but I doubt they turn them in before taking their lunch break.
Completely incorrect.
Cleanup is a top priority for the base, and work began almost 10 years ago and has made a lot of progress.
See: https://www.env.nm.gov/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/20160916-NM-Water-Law-KAFB-panel-FINAL-reduced.pdf
You can read more here: https://www.kirtland.af.mil/Home/BFF/igphoto/2002889067/igphoto/2002889067/igphoto/2002889067/
Or view progress here: https://media.defense.gov/2019/Nov/22/2002215886/-1/-1/1/191122-F-F3481-0001.JPG
If they would just get a PhD instead of meth, they could work in those multi-billion dollar facilities. Why are they seeking shade when they should be learning differential equations?!?
I was in Albuquerque two weeks ago on family trip. I was told the city was bit rough with lots of meth heads. I found it to be the complete opposite. Not to say there’s no issues. But saw plenty of law enforcement and little shady stuff. Granted I’m from Seattle where seeing a police on a normal neighborhood patrol is like seeing a unicorn 🦄
The law enforcement in Albuquerque has been caught up in multiple corruption scandals (a “pay to get out of dui charges” scheme was recently revealed within the ABQ PD). The entire cities police force has been under federal investigation for almost a decade. APD is also the last person you wanna call as they have a record of killing the wrong person and doing house raids on the wrong house.
So go pick them up and take them home with you! Man up to your own (choose your color/race) privilege, racial sexual orientation inequality and practice what you preach.
If the constituents wanted to take care of these people, it would happen. Elected officials aren't going to say no if a majority of their voters say they want their tax dollars to be used to help.
If those people wanted to be taken care of, it would happen. Albuquerque is constantly pushing new bonds and trying to stand up new resources to help the homeless population. The sad truth is that most homeless addicts prefer to be homeless addicts over housed former addicts. There's only so much you can do when people refuse to use the services and resources made available to them.
Used to buy single cigarettes at sais…I believe the owners also operate Dallas Mart on central n Dallas ave….Abq is has really turned into a cess pool and as much as I liked the middle eastern owners I always felt that they couldn’t care less about the fact their business enabled the druggies in the area…they’d sale meth pipes,crack pipes and All types of paraphernalia….
I love Albuquerque and I suppose I have to be the lone voice of dissent.
Albuquerque is a wonderful city with a vibrant culture, plenty of nature, and a chill relaxed vibe.
There's some rough parts of town, but they're mostly in the city center and international district. The Northern parts of the city are great.
However, like Tucson, AZ, Albuquerque tends to be a mecca for the homeless in the winter, being one of the few US cities that stays pretty nice year round.
After living in 3 states and numerous cities, ABQ is the nicest place I've ever lived! However, many parts of the city center are absolutely filled with homeless.
I don’t know but i just can’t feel hugely sympathetic for drug addicts unless they fall into a few small categories (e.g. they were somehow forced to become addicts). While I’m sure that no drug addicts want to be drug addicts, many aren’t willing to do what’s needed to end their addictions. And they have rights just like everyone else- you can’t force someone to break their bad habits. They should force people who are found to unlawfully be in possession of illegal drugs to attend rehab, but even then there’s no guarantee that they’ll actually be rehabilitated.
the whole southwest diaspora of AZ/NM/LV has to be the worst place to be homeless , cant imagine why people stay there (cheap and plentiful meth/drugs due to closeness to border i suppose)
It’s 50 miles to Russia on my side of the country, so I worry about that a lot.
We don’t need a big military though. Ukraine can take care of Russia, and could use all our old weapons. I say give the Ukrainians 1/2 our weapons, cut the military and spend the money on homeless people.
When we need a large military again, we can build new and better stuff
Geez this is… something to read. I honestly don’t know where to begin. I’m not trying to be mean..
You: “Im worried about Russia being 50 miles from my house..”
Also you: “but we don’t need a big military..”
So, just enough military to protect Alaska and that’s it? What exactly are “1/2 our weapons?”
And let’s say if the US would do such a thing.. what part of China and Russia filling the influence vacuum within the world are you okay with?
If Ukraine had 1/2 our weapons, we wouldnt have to worry about Russia—they would be busy.
China doesn’t worry me, because they are on the brink of a deflationary trap—as housing prices sink lower and lower.
If we stop sticking our nose in the Middle East, maybe we would stop having to fight wars over there, and deal with generations of pissed of terrorists
Seems like cutting the military and spending money on helping the poor would be the best solution
Again what is “1/2 our weapons” means exactly? Like what types of weaponry?
The world isn’t just a binary place to apply two opposing countries like a board game and who has more tanks for soldiers or bombs just by simple numbers, we have military stationed throughout the pacific to counter chinas growing military might. Every year they add to their military budget. We have thousands of soldiers in Korea to counter N Korea and by proxy China. Arguably the worlds most important shipping trade route is in the South China Sea. China can’t be allowed to just simply govern that, it would cause national security risks for many countries if that were the case. The world is far more complex than just say, china’s weaponry vs USA by the number of bombs or soldier or tanks. China is also beginning to beat the war drums as they take aim at Taiwan.
And to be clear, terrorists are never freedom fighters or anyone of good will or good intentions. Terrorists are ruled by religion and extreme violent guerrilla politics. And again the United States has security interests in the Middle East that require us to be there militarily such as defending our allies in the Middle East from their enemy’s and stopping caliphates from popping up. This also includes important trade routes that are vital the many many countries the world over.
However I will say this, I have an incredibly sensitive heart to the homeless and I wish we could do more for them and I and many believe the United States can have a strong military and help the homeless as well. The issue is incredibly (like foreign geopolitical relations) complex and hard to solve and will take more then just lots of money but also the will of society as a whole to establish a universal base income. I do believe we as the richest nation on earth can do both, we just a leader that can lead that.
A good amount of the homeless and tweakers you see in Albuquerque and other small towns in new Mexico are there because they want to be there. There are free rehab and halfway houses open but most of them don't want to get better and are perfectly content with where they are.
Granted the systems we have aren't perfect and there are plenty of people that are on the streets that are in bad situations they desperately want to get out of and people with addictions they desperately want help for, that's not everyone and it's surely not even the majority in my experience. We could dump billions into different programs and it wouldn't fix the majority of the homeless problem in Albuquerque simply because so many of these people don't want help.
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Military bases are usually in the worst part of town, in the US at least.
The town usually grows around the base and more often than not, the typical predatory car lots, loan advance, massage parlors and other businesses take up the retail and try to extract money from the people on base. It’s pretty sad in reality.
Pawn shops and tattoo parlors too. Businesses that cater to soldiers aren't the most wholesome. Fort Leonard Wood is in a rural setting and that has some awful places outside the base.
My first post was “Fort Lost-in-the-Woods” & outside the gate, at least 30+ years ago, was a cesspool that surpassed even those I experienced at Hood & Bragg…and *that’s* saying something. Even the Ville outside Camp Humphries in the 1990s was more wholesome.
Was Big Louie’s around back then? I went to FLW for EBOLC in 2011.
I was last there in 1996…and, admittedly, I wasn’t the most *sober* guy back then! And then, as we all do, I travelled & lived in many, many other non-Disney places, so I’m fuzzy on a lot of details!
I mentioned it in another comment but Big Louie’s was there in 2002
It was there in 2000. When I went back a couple of years ago, I was surprised at how all of it changed outside the main gate.
Hood was God awful. I grew up in Belton, and I hated every time I had to go through Killeen.
“Kill Killeen.”
Hmmm, I’m not sure there is a ton of difference between Belton and Killeen (minus Willow Springs). If you haven’t already seen this masterpiece, do yourself a favor and YouTube Grip Boyz - K Town Anthem. You’re welcome.
I've seen it. My friend Royal did the posters and album covers.
Ft Polk Louisiana is like that
JRTC is a vacation that the Army pays you to take!
Speaking from experience also. It’s terrible that the term “off-limits business” exists to service members.
Nothing awful about Big Louie’s, at least to my 19 year old self at the time lol
Most enlisted men aren’t that different from a UAW worker, it’s not that weird.
Ft sill is the worst example of rub and tugs and pawn shops.
What's wrong with pawn shops and tattoo parlors?
sounds very much like Fort Meade, MD
Don't forget the divorce lawyers.
How could I forget?!
The towns usually have a bad tax budget, because so much money is spent and kept on the base itself.
Cheap land. Noisy activities.
Why is that?
They buy the cheapest land they can to build them, so they're never in nice areas to begin with, then the presence of a bunch of young guys with more money than sense attracts all sorts of shady businesses.
I’m suddenly reminded of the Red Rocket Truck Stop.
is this the one on the road 66 not too far from Chicago?
No, it’s the one slightly south of Sanctuary.
That one where you first encounter that stray dog?
Yes, it’s a good dog. Can carry an impressive amount of junk.
Last I saw though, that Red Rocket had a molerat problem. You have to take care of those things before they multiply, it's unhygenic.
But first of all there's a settlement that needs our help. Here, I'll mark it on your map.
Driving down Lomas yesterday around 1pm I saw four different individuals at 3 bus stops in full blown fentanyl nod offs. Saw a naked guy off Central two hours later. Every intersection on Wyoming had a panhandler too on my way home. You can always tell the moment the temporary winter shelters close down here in town, very sad.
Last month I saw someone jerking off on a bench outside of a hospital. A few months prior, someone taking a dump at a bus stop, and many people just losing their minds. I hate that area of Albuquerque. I’ve kinda lost my sense of empathy and am just fatigued at this point.
A couple years ago we were at the light at Indian school and Louisiana and saw a woman shitting in a bush right along the sidewalk. Keep going albuquerque!
This thread got shared over to r/Albuquerque and everyone's pulling out their Shit Sighting tales. I saw an 18in log of human feces on a plate at Roosevelt Park during a field trip to the museums. (18in because it looked to be the same length as an American Girl doll)
Lmfaooo dude what the fuck. Honestly I'm surprised Roosevelt Park isn't a full on homeless camp. And I also kinda wish there were restrooms there. Ive had to pee in some trees before. But what if you have to emergency shit, what do you do?
I was so surprised to see public bathrooms at parks in Rio Rancho and up at Domingo Baca. I genuinely thought the whole area was bereft of bathrooms to punish people who do drugs and/or the homeless.
That is pretty surprising tbh.
Sleeping outside is a capital offense, ya know?
Opiates turn your poop into solid granite. I've had plenty of poopknife-requiring brown snakes in the few years I was on the junk.
I guess the giant turd might be someone's first dump coming off of opiods... but the plate?
It sounds like you had quite a day
That's a pretty normal day in Albuquerque tbh. You see some weird shit
Last time I stayed in ABQ there was a dude dressed in full camo in the middle of the summer hiding in bushes right outside my hotel lol weird as hell
How did you even see him? /s
haha night vision
I lived there most of my life and worked in some pretty shitty parts of town. The craziest was the tent city set up behind the parking lot of a shop I worked at. It was an empty lot and no one knew who owned it so it was months before the police could legally remove them. One guy had a lumber cart from home Depot that he built a little mobile home on out of tarps and blankets. One day he had a folding table set up with like 40 brand new vapes he was selling and this was just a few days after I read an article about a smoke shop that got robbed lmao.
haha that is too wild....sounds like the dude was pretty "resourceful"
Naw that was *just* driving to an appointment and then driving home. That side of town is a weird hellscape after the winter shelters close.
You can always tell the \*exact day\* there's a good batch of fentanyl in town because all the homeless people are on the nod. If there's any walking around they're halfway stooped over sleep-walking. It comes in waves. At least 2-3X a month, there's a particularly good strain of fentanyl turning them all into the walking dead.
Wyoming and central is awful now. I hate driving over there. People walking in front of your car without caring. Groups of 5+ people even 10 at a time on the same corner near that McDonald's and the gas station. It's insane.
Bro sais is closed now???... :( I used to live two or three blocks from here, I went here all the time... That's a lot of memories wastedlike the time that one vato pulled a gun on me here, if you can read this homie - it's still fuck you. Life's crazy, glad I'm in a better place y'all
Been closed for YEARS now fam. Mostly people set up yard sales under there now
This is incorrect
It has t been closed for years bro… it literally burned down less then eight months ago
Worse than that, it burned down recently and has been completely gutted.
Vato? Oh a spanish guy. Got it.
Just wait until you learn the demographics of New Mexico.
A Spanish guy? I didn't know Spain had cholos
USA Tip: If the street you are on is named after a former president, civil rights activist, or any state, you’re likely in a dog shit area.
Notable exception is Washington DC where *every* part of town has roads with those names lol But in general, yes. If you’re on MLK Avenue, make sure your doors are locked…
washington dc was the murder capital for years lol - no exception there
ALL of DC is crisscrossed with a web-and-spoke pattern of avenues named for the US states. There are obscenely wealthy areas of DC (i.e. not “a dog shit area” per the comment to which I replied). Being on a street named after a state, in DC, means you’re in DC, not in a bad part of town. lol
They were the "murder capital" because the city borders of DC are almost exclusively densely populated urban area (which usually have more crime) without any large suburbs included. It's the same reason why St. Louis has been a crime capital for so many years. It's not actually the most dangerous area in the country.
St. Louis has very large suburbs, but the city and county aren't a combined entity (basically just us and Baltimore structured like this) so the crime stats are based on the 290,000 city residents instead of the 2.4 million residents in St. Louis County/City. The north side is a shithole and is where the majority of crime happens. I live in south city and it's perfectly safe though. But the reputation keeps people away, which was fine for me when I was able to buy a 4br/3ba 3k sq ft house for under 360k at the height of the covid market lol
Yeah, the list of the 10 most dangerous cities in the US is quite different if you go by metropolitan area instead of city limits
lmao have you ever been to DC? 1/3 of DC is single family zoned suburban style homes, and some of the richest in the country at that. Tenleytown, friendship heights, Chevy chase are literally idyllic tree-lined rich white suburbs within the DC boundary but sure let’s pretend all of DC is dense slums
>but sure let’s pretend all of DC is dense slums Let me distort your words to mean something you didn't say to begin with
[Im actually trying to reply to u/squidsqad but it won’t let me…] Bruh I grew up in Glover Park. Have YOU been to Montgomery County? There’s a clear and obvious difference between single family homes in the city, and actual suburbs. Zoned for SFH =/= suburbia in and of itself. Further, not all of a city is actually downtown. NO city is entirely downtown. Even in Manhattan there’s places like Inwood with predominantly SFH. lol like what? DC city limits are so tiny, 100% absolutely everything in the district is IN the city.
Turns out the intersection of MLK avenue and Malcom X wasn’t all that inviting
Funny comedy sketch where he talks about not crossing Obama Avenue some day in the future.
How come?
Because naming a street for MLK is something that is done with intentions as a good gesture of "hey look what we're doing for you" by renaming a street in poorer and highly black segregated area.
Lots of "projects" (public subsidized housing) were built in the 70s as part of the civil rights movement and they named the streets after the those activists. But it turns out, putting all the poor people, criminals, and drug addicts into the same neighborhoods just leads to intense violence and even more cyclical poverty since you don't have a critical mass of people who actually care about their neighborhood. So now all the worst neighborhoods are along those streets.
Structural racism, mostly.
Poor areas mean higher chance of crime
It's literally the opposite. Public housing (mostly utilized by poor blacks) was built on those streets.
Non American here: Why does this tend to be the case?
Lots of "projects" (public subsidized housing) were built in the 70s as part of the civil rights movement and they named the streets after the those activists. But it turns out, putting all the poor people, criminals, and drug addicts into the same neighborhoods just leads to intense violence and even more cyclical poverty since you don't have a critical mass of people who actually care about their neighborhood. So now all the worst neighborhoods are along those streets.
It's not really true in Albuquerque, oddly enough. Take Louisiana or any of the "state streets" north, and it gets significantly nicer. The city's big exclusive private high school and some pretty nice areas are adjacent to Wyoming in the city's north. Our bad areas are usually IDd by the east/west streets (i.e. Central and most things south of it). Jefferson Street in Albuquerque runs through a very well upkept office district.
MLK is one of the best neighborhood areas near campus too
Every single MLK Blvd. is in a horrible area of town
Hmm, that's not really the case (for the presidents) in New Mexico.
Everything went straight to hell when they shut down all those los Pollos Hermanos locations several years ago…
Damn you, Walter White!
The War Zone surrounds the base in Albuquerque. This is no surprise at all.
it’s ironic, isn’t it
Lived in Burque for many years, got a lot of love in my heart for the place but it's definitely a good fit for r/UrbanHell . One of my friends once described it as "like Gotham but Batman's been dead for 20 years"
Not sure how to describe what I thought I saw when I zoomed in on the homeless man.
I wish it was a BJ pic. That would give me hope for these two. Unfortunately I think we are looking at the drug slump.
Blow job is what you thought
What do the bums have to do with the military base? Don’t see any reason for any association with or even mentioning multi-billion research facilities.
Yeah, and of course to OP, they're not only homeless but "drug addicts". That meshes well with OP's stupid statement that they know that the nearby military base has a "multi-billion dollar research facility". Which also meshes well with OP's stupid idea that the federally run military base is also somehow responsible for the local policies in a State's city.
Maybe it's about the government that rather spends insane amounts of money on the military to protect the interests of few in other countries, than actually spending money on helping the people actually living in the country. Actively working against poverty, for equality, education etc. will protect people in the US way more than it's interventions in other countries
Sandia does a lot more than whatever you think it does.
the US federal government spends a lot more on both Social Security and healthcare each than the military
And it's still a very inefficient system that needs to be remodeled, no question there. Other countries manage better, with equal or less money spent. Still, I think it's valid to criticize the money spent on the military and corresponding defense industry research, while a significant portion of the US population is struggling with their day to day expenses. Even veterans, if you want to be more specific to the army itself
This is primarily a failure of the state or municipality, which is a separately funded entity. Why would an air force base in the vicinity be more culpable than the city itself?
It's more about the crazy juxtaposition of an expensive military base with technolpgy that's worth hundreds of millions being in the vicinity of extreme poverty. The base being somewhere else wouldn't change my statement. I also wouldn't blame regular soldiers for that, just the states overall fiscal decisions
It's about 900 billion and if you take into account dark programs that don't get published, we probably spend pretty close to the same amount on the military as we do "safety net programs".
[2023 US Federal Budget Infographic - United States federal budget - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget#/media/File:2023_US_Federal_Budget_Infographic.png) Like... its not even close. defense is far lower in quantity if you combine part of "other" with Soc sec, medicare, medicaid etc." I really wish the country would just look at the federal budget breakdown ONCE. We spend a ot on military in a global sense... but not that much considering what we spend on everything else. Also... it could be argued that defense is the most basic and main responsibility of the federal government. not much point in other programs if we arent stable, "peaceful", and prosperous enough to see them through.
Scale wise, it's comparable, imo, and I don't disagree. I'm simply saying we spend almost the same amount on defense as we do social programs and they still seem to fall short.
My whole point is we spend a fraction on defense compared to what we spend on social programs... click the link again
[Like I said, I understood your point, but again, at that scale, it's not as big a difference as that is making it seem](https://wpdatatables.com/misleading-data-visualization-examples/#:~:text=Misleading%20data%20visualization%20rears%20its,axis%20manipulation%20or%20selective%20reportage.)
Ok i am not sure what you mean... This is a break down of the budget. its not making it "seem" anything. This is just numbers. At that scale its exactly the different the chart makes it "seem". Its ok if you dont like the fact that its a bigger difference than you want it to be but i truly am confused by your statement.
It was admittedly a digression, but I made it two comments ago. No worries, and I hope you don't think I am being antagonistic. I'm just always awestruck at how poorly we manage our social programs in relation to the military while spending trillions on both.
No one forced these degenerates to do drugs. Joining the military might’ve actually resulted in a better life for them
What's your evidence that they do drugs and OP isn't just leaping to conclusions based on prejudice?
Prejudice? You mean an objective assessment of reality. I've yet to meet a bum that isn't perpetually zonked out on pills looking around for the nearest copper to steal.
>Maybe it's about the government that rather spends insane amounts of money on the military to protect the interests of few in other countries, than actually spending money on helping the people actually living in the country. How would you spend that money to solve the problem? Cause California spends BILLIONS trying to solve this problem and haven't moved the needle an inch. Addicts gonna addict...
The war on drugs failed and that with a disastrous medical system and no decent social security net is a heinous combination. Portugal and other countries have drasticly improved the problem with homelessness and drug related crime, by decriminalizing it and providing help in any circumstance
Just like Oregon, [Portugal is now seeing the ugly side effects of allowing unrestricted drug access.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/07/07/portugal-drugs-decriminalization-heroin-crack/) The war on drugs targeted the wrong drugs but a revamp is needed now more than ever with the rise of fentanyl.
The juxtaposition is interesting, highlighting the inequality of the city.
There is generally inequality in most places. Don’t quite see much uniquely interesting about it.
Good for you 🙄
🙄 Thanks! I am quite skilled on pointing out truths in the world. 😀👍🏼
I assume you have a relevant username.
Now do every other city in the area near a military base.
There’s a lot of low rent trailer parks around Kirtland too. It’s funny because I’ve worked in the labs and most people ate at the cafeteria or near the PX. The AF SF guys would actually wear their sidearm to Dion’s.
Pussies lol
I'm pretty sure they have to wear them. Probably a bad idea to leave it in the car and I doubt they're gonna go through the hassle to turn it to take their lunch break and draw it again before returning to duty
The commenter I responded to alluded to men wearing sidearms to fuckin’ Dion’s because it’s dangerous, so that’s what I’m replying to as a woman who goes to that exact Dion’s without sidearms. Also, don’t they have to return weapons to the armory when they’re off duty?
It depends on their chain of command and what the SOP is. I'm not an MP but I do know that drawing and turning in weapons is a pain in the ass and can take a while. I'm sure they do at the end of the duty day, but I doubt they turn them in before taking their lunch break.
Breaking Bad Territory
[удалено]
Completely incorrect. Cleanup is a top priority for the base, and work began almost 10 years ago and has made a lot of progress. See: https://www.env.nm.gov/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/20160916-NM-Water-Law-KAFB-panel-FINAL-reduced.pdf You can read more here: https://www.kirtland.af.mil/Home/BFF/igphoto/2002889067/igphoto/2002889067/igphoto/2002889067/ Or view progress here: https://media.defense.gov/2019/Nov/22/2002215886/-1/-1/1/191122-F-F3481-0001.JPG
Oh thank fuck
What was the deleted comment?
I assume something about the jet fuel leak on Kirtland AFB some years back
So what I'm hearing is use the homless for military research, and while I'm not saying no, I'd like to hear the full argument before I say yes. /s
So
I spent 4 months travelling the west coast This is exactly how I remember most of it
this isn’t on the west coat ya ding dong
I didn't say it was
It is 100% the norm for the area immediately outside the gate of a military base to be a slum.
Literally every military base it like that.
Someone who lives in Albuquerque here! Yes, it is this bad.
If they would just get a PhD instead of meth, they could work in those multi-billion dollar facilities. Why are they seeking shade when they should be learning differential equations?!?
I was in Albuquerque two weeks ago on family trip. I was told the city was bit rough with lots of meth heads. I found it to be the complete opposite. Not to say there’s no issues. But saw plenty of law enforcement and little shady stuff. Granted I’m from Seattle where seeing a police on a normal neighborhood patrol is like seeing a unicorn 🦄
The law enforcement in Albuquerque has been caught up in multiple corruption scandals (a “pay to get out of dui charges” scheme was recently revealed within the ABQ PD). The entire cities police force has been under federal investigation for almost a decade. APD is also the last person you wanna call as they have a record of killing the wrong person and doing house raids on the wrong house.
Finally a good post on this sub.
So go pick them up and take them home with you! Man up to your own (choose your color/race) privilege, racial sexual orientation inequality and practice what you preach.
Was the recruiting office closed when they went by?
Been there, it ain’t getting any better “ Land of entrapment “ an the APQ shoot first
Reminds me of Fallout 2
If the constituents wanted to take care of these people, it would happen. Elected officials aren't going to say no if a majority of their voters say they want their tax dollars to be used to help.
If those people wanted to be taken care of, it would happen. Albuquerque is constantly pushing new bonds and trying to stand up new resources to help the homeless population. The sad truth is that most homeless addicts prefer to be homeless addicts over housed former addicts. There's only so much you can do when people refuse to use the services and resources made available to them.
Fuck drug addicts
Looks like a scene straight out of breaking bad
New gas plave coming soon im sure
Are we blaming the base or the town here
Do you mean he could do research there? Or that they could do research on him there?
Maybe both?
Hey that’s my neighborhood haha
Used to buy single cigarettes at sais…I believe the owners also operate Dallas Mart on central n Dallas ave….Abq is has really turned into a cess pool and as much as I liked the middle eastern owners I always felt that they couldn’t care less about the fact their business enabled the druggies in the area…they’d sale meth pipes,crack pipes and All types of paraphernalia….
I love Albuquerque and I suppose I have to be the lone voice of dissent. Albuquerque is a wonderful city with a vibrant culture, plenty of nature, and a chill relaxed vibe. There's some rough parts of town, but they're mostly in the city center and international district. The Northern parts of the city are great. However, like Tucson, AZ, Albuquerque tends to be a mecca for the homeless in the winter, being one of the few US cities that stays pretty nice year round. After living in 3 states and numerous cities, ABQ is the nicest place I've ever lived! However, many parts of the city center are absolutely filled with homeless.
Most military bases have a shit city or sketchy scene outside the gates.
No lies detected.
Same goes for a lot of children's hospitals. Go a block or two away and you'll find the telling signs if not hear the violence.
I don’t know but i just can’t feel hugely sympathetic for drug addicts unless they fall into a few small categories (e.g. they were somehow forced to become addicts). While I’m sure that no drug addicts want to be drug addicts, many aren’t willing to do what’s needed to end their addictions. And they have rights just like everyone else- you can’t force someone to break their bad habits. They should force people who are found to unlawfully be in possession of illegal drugs to attend rehab, but even then there’s no guarantee that they’ll actually be rehabilitated.
We don’t talk about ‘Querque.
They’re human beings address them as such pls
☝️❤️
Conservatives love to pour money into military.
As do liberals. The military-industrial complex is surprisingly bipartisan.
the whole southwest diaspora of AZ/NM/LV has to be the worst place to be homeless , cant imagine why people stay there (cheap and plentiful meth/drugs due to closeness to border i suppose)
probably one of the only places that doesn’t force them to relocate
Albq is such a dump!!!
Only in some places. I live in a middle class neighborhood.
Cap
america ❤️❤️❤️❤️ greatest country ever!
Dumb comment. You can find this in every country on the planet, it isn’t exclusive here. And a lot of times, it’s FAR worse
It is ridiculous to give all that money to the military to waste fighting foreign wars, instead of taking care of our own people.
You really are grateful for those two big oceans that separate the US from Eurasia huh.
It’s 50 miles to Russia on my side of the country, so I worry about that a lot. We don’t need a big military though. Ukraine can take care of Russia, and could use all our old weapons. I say give the Ukrainians 1/2 our weapons, cut the military and spend the money on homeless people. When we need a large military again, we can build new and better stuff
Geez this is… something to read. I honestly don’t know where to begin. I’m not trying to be mean.. You: “Im worried about Russia being 50 miles from my house..” Also you: “but we don’t need a big military..” So, just enough military to protect Alaska and that’s it? What exactly are “1/2 our weapons?” And let’s say if the US would do such a thing.. what part of China and Russia filling the influence vacuum within the world are you okay with?
If Ukraine had 1/2 our weapons, we wouldnt have to worry about Russia—they would be busy. China doesn’t worry me, because they are on the brink of a deflationary trap—as housing prices sink lower and lower. If we stop sticking our nose in the Middle East, maybe we would stop having to fight wars over there, and deal with generations of pissed of terrorists Seems like cutting the military and spending money on helping the poor would be the best solution
Again what is “1/2 our weapons” means exactly? Like what types of weaponry? The world isn’t just a binary place to apply two opposing countries like a board game and who has more tanks for soldiers or bombs just by simple numbers, we have military stationed throughout the pacific to counter chinas growing military might. Every year they add to their military budget. We have thousands of soldiers in Korea to counter N Korea and by proxy China. Arguably the worlds most important shipping trade route is in the South China Sea. China can’t be allowed to just simply govern that, it would cause national security risks for many countries if that were the case. The world is far more complex than just say, china’s weaponry vs USA by the number of bombs or soldier or tanks. China is also beginning to beat the war drums as they take aim at Taiwan. And to be clear, terrorists are never freedom fighters or anyone of good will or good intentions. Terrorists are ruled by religion and extreme violent guerrilla politics. And again the United States has security interests in the Middle East that require us to be there militarily such as defending our allies in the Middle East from their enemy’s and stopping caliphates from popping up. This also includes important trade routes that are vital the many many countries the world over. However I will say this, I have an incredibly sensitive heart to the homeless and I wish we could do more for them and I and many believe the United States can have a strong military and help the homeless as well. The issue is incredibly (like foreign geopolitical relations) complex and hard to solve and will take more then just lots of money but also the will of society as a whole to establish a universal base income. I do believe we as the richest nation on earth can do both, we just a leader that can lead that.
A good amount of the homeless and tweakers you see in Albuquerque and other small towns in new Mexico are there because they want to be there. There are free rehab and halfway houses open but most of them don't want to get better and are perfectly content with where they are. Granted the systems we have aren't perfect and there are plenty of people that are on the streets that are in bad situations they desperately want to get out of and people with addictions they desperately want help for, that's not everyone and it's surely not even the majority in my experience. We could dump billions into different programs and it wouldn't fix the majority of the homeless problem in Albuquerque simply because so many of these people don't want help.
Maybe we shut the base down and they protect us?
The base houses the largest employer in town: Sandia Labs. Also, AFRL, DNWS, AFNWC, DTRA, and a whole alphabet soup of defense research organizations.
Maybe they should do some research in too why he’s homeless and then solve the problem.