Safest Cities in New Mexico

Where can you experience the Great Plains, the Rocky Mountains and the Chihuahuan Desert without crossing any state lines? New Mexico! Despite its diverse geography, New Mexico is often associated with its desert landscape thanks to imagery associated with the Roswell UFO incident or the missile and rocket test facilities at White Sands. New Mexico’s history is just as varied as its landscape, with a cast of characters ranging from indigenous cultures to Spanish to American (and even Confederate soldiers) laying claim to this territory. Perhaps nowhere else in the United States is indigenous history so stunningly tangible as it is at Taos Pueblo, where the Red Willow people’s adobe homes have remained intact and inhabited for over 1,000 years. Although our data hasn’t uncovered the secret to maintaining a thousand-year-old civilization, it can certainly help you compare the safest cities in New Mexico. 

How We Determined the Safest Cities in New Mexico

We narrowed down the safest cities in each state based on two primary categories. First, we evaluated public safety factors including violent, property and hate crimes in each area to help determine the safest areas to live. We then evaluated financial and socioeconomic factors including household income, average rent and health insurance. In addition, we evaluated each state for natural disaster safety and public health safety. You can find a detailed breakdown of our methodology and links to sources here.

Here are the public safety factors we counted for each city:

*Public safety data is based on a population of 10,000 (for example, a “2” means two incidents for every 10,000 people).

• Property crime – Number of property crimes reported in the city (FBI Crime Report)
• Violent crime – Number of violent crimes reported in the city (FBI Crime Report)
• Aggravated assaults – Number of aggravated assaults reported in the city (FBI Crime Report)
• Hate crime – Number of hate crimes reported in the city (FBI Hate Crime Report)
• Officer-related incidents – Number of officer-involved shootings reported in the city (Gun Violence Archive)
• Mass shootings – Incidents in which four or more people are shot/killed in the city (Gun Violence Archive)

Here are the financial safety factors we counted for each city:

• Annual rent – Annualized median rent
• Unemployment rate – The average rate of unemployed residents in each city
• Cost of living – The average annual rent and household income per city
• Poverty rate – Percentage of families that reported experiencing poverty in the last 12 months
• Uninsured employed – Percentage of employed residents that reported not having health insurance
• Uninsured unemployed – Percentage of unemployed residents that reported not having health insurance