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I'm taking the wife and kids back to ABQ next month for the Balloon Fiesta and to see my mom. I've not done the Fiesta in at least 35 years. Kids always think the balloons are neat.
I grew up there from the late 70s to early 90s. It was a sleepy town with a sizeable military/defense/DOE community, and it was a fun place to grow up as a kid. I lived near open space (Bear Canyon Arroyo) and could go disappear for hours exploring - - but watch out for afternoon thunderstorms - - the flash flooding can be intense (and deadly). If you were a Breaking Bad fan, the vacuum cleaner guy's pickup point was the base of a real life dam built for such flooding - - I used to walk across it every day for middle school.
The city started to go downhill in the late 80s/early 90s. The growing drug trade made ABQ an important logistics hub, and suddenly it seemed like violent crime was everywhere, and not just the "bad" neighborhoods in the valley (generally along and west of I-25). The gang-bangers, illegals, and other thugs overwhelmed the city and law enforcement.
My brother used to be an ER doc at Presbyterian. He called it the knife and gun club. Apparently the most dangerous dangerous thing you can do is be "mindin' your own business" - - that's how it always starts.
I'm sure there plenty of other dangerous cities, but best to keep your head on a swivel: ABQ can be sketchy as hell, particularly late at night and in the downtown/university area.
All that said, the mountains and outdoors and weather are great in NM and I like to go "home" periodically for a visit. And as others have pointed out, there's some really cool, empty highways with a varied mix of scenery: mountains, deserts, ghost towns, oil patch, rivers, gorges, and more. It's a neat state for a roadtrip.
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