Taylor Ranch in Albuquerque, NM

Taylor Ranch is a master-planned community on Albuquerque's West Side, across the Rio Grande from the center of the city. It runs from Paseo del Norte south to Western Trail and Namaste Road, with the river and its bosque on the east and the lava escarpment of Petroglyph National Monument on the west. The land was ranched by Joel and Nina Mae Taylor, who sold 300 acres to the Bellamah Corporation in 1973; the subdivision that followed carries their name, as does Taylor Ranch Road. Mariposa Basin Park, a public library and the Don Newton community center all sit inside the neighborhood, which a voluntary association speaks for.

Joel and Nina Mae Taylor left a homestead in Chama for Albuquerque in 1939 and bought 800 acres west of the Rio Grande that same year. Three hundred of those acres went to the Bellamah Corporation, and the subdivision that rose on them took the family name. An early homeowners group ran from 1976 to 1978, and the Taylor Ranch Neighborhood Association was incorporated on February 28, 1980. Montaño West was the neighborhood's first park.

The association is voluntary rather than a mandatory homeowners organization, so ownership carries no dues, and it has spent years pressing for more parkland inside its boundaries.

Along the river the city bought the 23-acre San Antonio Oxbow Bluffs in 2021, one of the last undeveloped parcels on the west-side bosque, and opened a walking loop, an outdoor classroom and picnic tables on it; the wetland there draws more than 179 bird species. Mariposa Basin Park, at Taylor Ranch Road and Kachina, runs three loops of half a mile, three quarters and a mile past ponds, playgrounds and sports fields.

Two named pockets are recorded inside the community: Prairie Ridge, which turns up in local plat names as an extension of the ranch, and Alban Hills.