Chama is a tiny village located in the state of New Mexico. With a population of 913 people and just one neighborhood, Chama is the 115th largest community in New Mexico.
Chama is a decidedly white-collar village, with fully 92.80% of the workforce employed in white-collar jobs, well above the national average. Overall, Chama is a village of service providers, managers, and professionals. There are especially a lot of people living in Chama who work in management occupations (19.73%), maintenance occupations (16.80%), and food service (11.73%).
Of important note, Chama is also a village of artists. Chama has more artists, designers and people working in media than 90% of the communities in America. This concentration of artists helps shape Chama’s character.
Telecommuters are a relatively large percentage of the workforce: 14.40% of people work from home. While this number may seem small overall, as a fraction of the total workforce it is high relative to the nation. These workers are often telecommuters who work in knowledge-based, white-collar professions. For example, Silicon Valley has large numbers of people who telecommute. Other at-home workers may be self-employed people who operate small businesses out of their homes.
Residents will find that the village is relatively quiet. This is because it is not over-populated, and it has fewer college students, renters, and young children - all of whom can be noisy at times. So, if you're looking for a relatively peaceful place to live, Chama is worth considering.
Compared to the rest of the country, citizens of Chama spend much less time in their cars: on average, their commute to work is only 10.40 minutes. This also means that noise and pollution levels in the village are less than they would otherwise be.
Being a small village, Chama does not have a public transit system used by locals to get to and from work.
The education level of Chama citizens, measured as those with bachelor's degrees or advanced degrees, is similar to the national average for all American cities and towns. 18.94% of adults 25 and older in Chama have a college degree.
The per capita income in Chama in 2022 was $36,375, which is upper middle income relative to New Mexico, and middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $145,500 for a family of four. However, Chama contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
Chama is an extremely ethnically-diverse village. The people who call Chama home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. People of Hispanic or Latino origin are the most prevalent group in Chama, accounting for 73.71% of the village’s residents (people of Hispanic or Latino origin can be of any race). The greatest number of Chama residents report their race to be White. Important ancestries of people in Chama include English, German, Norwegian, Swedish, and Scottish.
The most common language spoken in Chama is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Native American languages.
The way a neighborhood looks and feels when you walk or drive around it, from its setting, its buildings, and its flavor, can make all the difference. This neighborhood has some really cool things about the way it looks and feels as revealed by NeighborhoodScout's exclusive research. This might include anything from the housing stock to the types of households living here to how people get around.
Whether walking, biking, riding, or driving, the length of one's commute is an important factor for one's quality of life. The neighborhood stands out for its commute length, according to NeighborhoodScout's analysis. Long commutes can be brutal. They take time, money, and energy, leaving less of you for yourself and your family. The residents of the neighborhood unfortunately have the distinction of having, on average, a longer commute than most any neighborhood in America. 21.3% of commuters here travel more than one hour just one-way to work. That is more than two hours per day. This percentage with two-hour + round-trip commutes is higher than NeighborhoodScout found in 99.7% of all neighborhoods in America.
Unpopulated, and rural, the neighborhood is one of the least crowded neighborhoods in all of America. If you like open space, no traffic, and lots of room, this neighborhood may be just what you are looking for. According to NeighborhoodScout's leading research, this neighborhood is less densely populated than 99.0% of the neighborhoods in America.
In addition, vacant homes and apartments are a significant characteristic of this neighborhood. In fact, with 47.9% of the residential real estate vacant, the neighborhood claims the distinction of having a higher vacancy rate than 98.7% of the neighborhoods in America. This can either be because much of the property is seasonally occupied, like in many vacation areas, or that much of the real estate is more permanently abandoned.
The government often provides some of the more stable jobs in the economy. From local, to state, to federal government workers, the government can also be a major employer. What NeighborhoodScout's analysis revealed, is that the neighborhood in particular stands out when compared nationally for the proportion of its working residents who are employed by the government. At 14.2% of its workforce, this neighborhood has a greater concentration of government workers than 96.6% of U.S. neighborhoods.
There is an especially high percentage of incarcerated people (1.1%) living in the neighborhood.
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Native American and Austrian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 5.1% of this neighborhood's residents have Native American ancestry and 1.2% have Austrian ancestry.
is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 1.9% 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 98.9% of the neighborhoods in America.
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 neighborhood in Chama are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 65.0% of U.S. neighborhoods. In addition, 5.0% of the children seventeen and under living in this neighborhood are living below the federal poverty line, which is a lower rate of childhood poverty than is found in 63.8% of America'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 neighborhood, 39.6% of the working population is employed in executive, management, and professional occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is manufacturing and laborer occupations, with 27.4% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (18.1%), and 14.9% in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants.
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 70.0% of households. Some people also speak Spanish (26.8%).
Boston's Beacon Hill blue-blood streets, Brooklyn's Orthodox Jewish enclaves, Los Angeles' Persian neighborhoods. Each has its own culture derived primarily from the ancestries and culture of the residents who call these neighborhoods home. Likewise, each neighborhood in America has its own culture – some more unique than others – based on lifestyle, occupations, the types of households – and importantly – on the ethnicities and ancestries of the people who live in the neighborhood. Understanding where people came from, who their grandparents or great-grandparents were, can help you understand how a neighborhood is today.
In the neighborhood in Chama, NM, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Spanish (21.9%). There are also a number of people of German ancestry (10.9%), and residents who report Mexican roots (8.6%), and some of the residents are also of Irish ancestry (7.7%), along with some English ancestry residents (6.5%), among others.
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 neighborhood spend under 15 minutes commuting one-way to work (56.0% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America. However, there is also a significant group of residents (21.3%) who commute over an hour in each direction.
Here most residents (82.4%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.