Western Hills in Rio Rancho, NM

Western Hills is an established subdivision on the south side of Rio Rancho, bounded by Unser Boulevard on the west, Western Hills Drive on the east, Cabezon Boulevard on the north and Westside Boulevard, also signed as 19th Avenue, on the south. Most of its houses went up in the 1980s, when AMREP was turning its Rio Rancho land holdings into single-family blocks and the young city was filling in around them. The streets hold detached houses on individual lots. A registered neighborhood association covers the area and meets four times a year at the Cabezon Community Center, just off the northern edge.

The city keeps Western Hills on its register of neighborhood associations, and the group gathers in March, June, September and December.

The layout dates from the AMREP era. The company assembled roughly 90,000 acres north of Albuquerque, cut the land into lots and sold them to buyers around the world; Rio Rancho incorporated in 1981, and these blocks were finished in the years right after.

Unser Boulevard carries traffic along the western edge, with the Southern Boulevard junction close by.