What do we mean by a neighborhood?
NeighborhoodScout® uses the official government designation for neighborhoods - the census tract.
Census tracts are small, relatively permanent subdivisions of a county that are defined by the U.S. Census Bureau in conjunction with local authorities all across the country to define real neighborhoods that are bounded to contain areas with homogeneous population characteristics (including economic status, lifestyle, and living conditions). Census tracts usually have 4,000 persons, but can range between 1,500 and 8,000 persons. This is the most fine-grained area for which detailed information is made available from the government, to protect the individual privacy of each of us. Because census tracts are based on population, they vary in size depending on the density of settlement. In urban areas, they are small, and in rural areas they can cover an entire small town or even a few small towns in very rural areas.
Since census tracts are subdivisions of a county, we did a spatial overlay of the census tracts onto city and town boundaries using a geographic information system to properly assign each census tract to its appropriate city or town. Then we named each census tract to the local colloquially recognized neighborhood name for that spot (e.g., Boston, MA (Dorchester). If there was not a name available, we named the census tract by the largest street intersection in the census tract (e.g., Worcester, MA (Lincoln St/Plantation St)
Why we don't use Zip Codes as neighborhoods
Zip codes were developed by the Postal Service for the purpose of delivering mail, but were never intended to define coherent neighborhoods. In addition, Zip Codes can have as many as 10 distinctly different census tracts contained within them. When distinct census tracts are blended together in a single Zip Code, the data reflects their average conditions and often gives a false sense of the area. The result is that potentially great matching neighborhoods can be missed, and erroneous matches can also be produced and delivered to you.
Using census tracts makes great matches possible, and helps people find the areas that are best for them and their families. Because we are committed to providing the highest possible quality and finding the neighborhoods that best meet your criteria, we use census tracts. And, as always, we show you the actual street map of the neighborhood so you know exactly where your best matching neighborhood is located.
What is a Condition Alert?
A condition alert is a condition in the neighborhood that triggers an alert. NeighborhoodScout contains condition alerts to highlight conditions that are extreme, whether good or bad. This helps answer crucial questions about the state of the neighborhood being evaluated, such as:
What are the risks of violent crime here?
Is the risk of home break-ins or other property crimes increasing?
Does real estate here hold its value?
Are the trends in local vacancies or unemployment concerning?
...and dozens more.
Information at a glance that you need to know to invest, appraise or finance a property.
La Mesa median real estate price is $293,105, which is more expensive than 54.8% of the neighborhoods in New Mexico and 38.5% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in La Mesa is currently $1,116, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. Rents here are currently lower in price than 85.0% of New Mexico neighborhoods.
La Mesa is an urban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
La Mesa real estate is primarily made up of small (studio to two bedroom) to medium sized (three or four bedroom) single-family homes and apartment complexes/high-rise apartments. Most of the residential real estate is renter occupied. Many of the residences in the La Mesa neighborhood are older, well-established, built between 1940 and 1969. A number of residences were also built between 1970 and 1999.
Home and apartment vacancy rates are 7.5% in La Mesa. NeighborhoodScout analysis shows that this rate is lower than 50.7% of the neighborhoods in the nation, approximately near the middle range for vacancies.
Notable & Unique Neighborhood Characteristics
When you see a neighborhood for the first time, the most important thing is often the way it looks, like its homes and its setting. Some places look the same, but they only reveal their true character after living in them for a while because they contain a unique mix of occupational or cultural groups. This neighborhood is very unique in some important ways, according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive exploration and analysis.
People
Astoundingly, the La Mesa neighborhood has one of the highest concentrations of divorcees living here than of any neighborhood, a higher concentration than NeighborhoodScout found in 96.6% of U.S. neighborhoods. This may be because people living here divorce more often than others, or that divorced people move here after they become divorced. If you are divorced, you will be in good company in this particular Albuquerque neighborhood.
In addition, one of the unique characteristics of the La Mesa neighborhood revealed by analysis is that the per capita income of residents here is lower than that found in 95.6% of the neighborhoods in America. Also of note, 54.9% of the children in this area live in poverty; an extraordinarily high percentage compared to other neighborhoods in the nation. In a nation where approximately one in four children grows up in poverty, this neighborhood stands out for the depth of the problem manifested here.
Diversity
Did you know that the La Mesa neighborhood has more Native American and Cuban ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 2.6% of this neighborhood's residents have Native American ancestry and 2.9% have Cuban ancestry.
La Mesa is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 3.4% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Native American languages at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 99.5% of the neighborhoods in America.
The Neighbors
There are two complementary measures for understanding the income of a neighborhood's residents: the average and the extremes. While a neighborhood may be relatively wealthy overall, it is equally important to understand the rate of people - particularly children - who are living at or below the federal poverty line, which is extremely low income. Some neighborhoods with a lower average income may actually have a lower childhood poverty rate than another with a higher average income, and this helps us understand the conditions and character of a neighborhood.
The neighbors in the La Mesa neighborhood in Albuquerque are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 95.6% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 54.9% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 95.6% of U.S. neighborhoods.
The old saying "you are what you eat" is true. But it is also true that you are what you do for a living. The types of occupations your neighbors have shape their character, and together as a group, their collective occupations shape the culture of a place.
In the La Mesa neighborhood, 33.8% of the working population is employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is executive, management, and professional occupations, with 27.3% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (22.6%), and 14.5% in manufacturing and laborer occupations.
Languages
The languages spoken by people in this neighborhood are diverse. These are tabulated as the languages people preferentially speak when they are at home with their families. The most common language spoken in the La Mesa neighborhood is English, spoken by 57.6% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish, Native American languages, Tagalog (the first language of the Philippine region) and Italian.
Ethnicity / Ancestry
Culture is shared learned behavior. We learn it from our parents, their parents, our houses of worship, and much of our culture – our learned behavior – comes from our ancestors. That is why ancestry and ethnicity can be so interesting and important to understand: places with concentrations of people of one or more ancestries often express those shared learned behaviors and this gives each neighborhood its own culture. Even different neighborhoods in the same city can have drastically different cultures.
In the La Mesa neighborhood in Albuquerque, NM, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Mexican (39.2%). There are also a number of people of English ancestry (8.9%), and residents who report Spanish roots (7.5%), and some of the residents are also of German ancestry (5.9%), along with some Italian ancestry residents (5.7%), among others. In addition, 21.6% of the residents of this neighborhood were born in another country.
Getting to Work
Even if your neighborhood is walkable, you may still have to drive to your place of work. Some neighborhoods are located where many can get to work in just a few minutes, while others are located such that most residents have a long and arduous commute. The greatest number of commuters in La Mesa neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (51.2% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (74.0%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In addition, quite a number also carpool with coworkers, friends, or neighbors to get to work (16.4%) . In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.
SCOUT’s patented match algorithm identifies the most similar neighborhoods to a subject location, and quantifies the similarity to the subject location. This allows analysts to identify the most similar neighborhoods in a local market area for appraisals, investments, and research.
The algorithm uses 273 neighborhood conditions, identifies the dominant dimensions underlying the conditions and calculates the similarity. This captures the true culture and character of locations, economic conditions, and trends.
The closer to 100% means the locations are nearly identical. 80% is a very good, but not excellent match, and so forth.
