La Luz is a very small town located in the state of New Mexico. With a population of 1,578 people and just one neighborhood, La Luz is the 90th largest community in New Mexico.
Unlike some towns where white-collar or blue-collar occupations dominate the local economy, La Luz is neither predominantly one nor the other. Instead, it has a mixed workforce of both white- and blue-collar jobs. Overall, La Luz is a town of sales and office workers, service providers, and construction workers and builders. There are especially a lot of people living in La Luz who work in sales jobs (15.16%), management occupations (13.53%), and healthcare suport services (13.28%).
And if you like science, one thing you'll find is that La Luz has lots of scientists living in town - whether they be life scientists, physical scientists (like astronomers), or social scientists (like geographers!). So, if you're scientific-minded, you might like it here too.
A relatively large number of people in La Luz telecommute to their jobs. Overall, about 12.06% of the workforce works from home. While this may seem like a small number, as a fraction of the total workforce it ranks among the highest in the country. 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.
It is a fairly quiet town because there are relatively few of those groups of people who have a tendency to be noisy. (Children, for example, often can't help themselves from being noisy, and being parents ourselves, we know!) La Luz has relatively few families with children living at home, and is quieter because of it. Renters and college students, for their own reasons, can also be noisy. La Luz has few renters and college students. But the biggest reason it is quieter in La Luz than in most places in America, is that there are just simply fewer people living here. If you think trees make good neighbors, La Luz may be for you.
One of the benefits of La Luz is that there is very little traffic. The average commute to work is 15.01 minutes, which is substantially less than the national average. Not only does this mean that the drive to work is less aggravating, but noise and pollution levels are lower as a result.
As is often the case in a small town, La Luz doesn't have a public transportation system that people use for their commute.
The population of La Luz overall has a level of education that is slightly above the US average for all US cities and towns of 21.84%. Of adults 25 and older in La Luz, 23.30% have at least a bachelor's degree.
The per capita income in La Luz in 2022 was $25,599, which is middle income relative to New Mexico, and lower middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $102,396 for a family of four. However, La Luz contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
La Luz is an extremely ethnically-diverse town. The people who call La Luz 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 La Luz, accounting for 54.25% of the town’s residents (people of Hispanic or Latino origin can be of any race). The greatest number of La Luz residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Important ancestries of people in La Luz include English, German, Irish, French, and European.
The most common language spoken in La Luz is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Italian.
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.
The neighborhood stands out for having the majority of its residential real estate made up of mobile homes. In fact, 61.1% of the occupied real estate here are mobile homes, which is a greater proportion than is found in 99.6% of the neighborhoods in the U.S. If you like mobile homes, this might be a great neighborhood in which to look for real estate.
More people in choose to walk to work each day (14.4%) than almost any neighborhood in America. If you are attracted to the idea of being able to walk to work, this neighborhood could be a good choice.
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Czechoslovakian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 0.9% of this neighborhood's residents have Czechoslovakian ancestry.
How wealthy a neighborhood is, from very wealthy, to middle income, to low income is very formative with regard to the personality and character of a neighborhood. Equally important is the rate of people, particularly children, who live below the federal poverty line. In some wealthy gated communities, the areas immediately surrounding can have high rates of childhood poverty, which indicates other social issues. NeighborhoodScout's analysis reveals both aspects of income and poverty for this neighborhood.
The neighbors in the neighborhood in La Luz are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 88.8% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 30.0% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 81.2% 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 neighborhood, 30.3% of the working population is employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is executive, management, and professional occupations, with 26.0% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (24.3%), and 19.4% in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants.
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 neighborhood is English, spoken by 93.0% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Italian.
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 neighborhood in La Luz, NM, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Mexican (37.4%). There are also a number of people of English ancestry (10.9%), and residents who report German roots (10.4%), and some of the residents are also of Irish ancestry (8.4%), along with some Spanish ancestry residents (4.4%), among others.
How you get to work – car, bus, train or other means – and how much of your day it takes to do so is a large quality of life and financial issue. Especially with gasoline prices rising and expected to continue doing so, the length and means of one's commute can be a financial burden. Some neighborhoods are physically located so that many residents have to drive in their own car, others are set up so many walk to work, or can take a train, bus, or bike. The greatest number of commuters in neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (52.3% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (69.5%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In addition, quite a number also hop out the door and walk to work to get to work (14.4%) . In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.