This is a small community in a single neighborhood.
As throughout the site, some neighborhood-level data are reserved for subscribers.
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.
Pala is a very small town located in the state of California. With a population of 1,490 people and just one neighborhood, Pala is the 702nd largest community in California.
Housing costs in Pala are among some of the highest in the nation, although real estate prices here don't compare to real estate prices in the most expensive communities in California.
Occupations and Workforce
Unlike some towns, Pala isn’t mainly white- or blue-collar. Instead, the most prevalent occupations for people in Pala are a mix of both white- and blue-collar jobs. Overall, Pala is a town of service providers, farmers, fishers, or foresters, and sales and office workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Pala who work in farm management occupations (14.98%), maintenance occupations (13.03%), and food service (9.77%).
Also of interest is that Pala has more people living here who work in computers and math than 95% of the places in the US.
Setting & Lifestyle
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!) Pala 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. Pala has few renters and college students. But the biggest reason it is quieter in Pala than in most places in America, is that there are just simply fewer people living here. If you think trees make good neighbors, Pala may be for you.
As is often the case in a small town, Pala doesn't have a public transportation system that people use for their commute.
Demographics
Pala ranks among the bottom of the nation in terms of college education compared to other cities and towns: only 5.05% of people over 25 have a college degree.
The per capita income in Pala in 2022 was $37,680, which is middle income relative to California, and upper middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $150,720 for a family of four. However, Pala contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
Pala is an extremely ethnically-diverse town. The people who call Pala 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 Pala, accounting for 47.87% of the town’s residents (people of Hispanic or Latino origin can be of any race). The greatest number of Pala residents report their race to be Native American, followed by White. Important ancestries of people in Pala include Welsh, English, Irish, German, and Scottish.
In addition, Pala has a lot of people living here who were born outside of the US (22.57%).
The most common language spoken in Pala is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Tagalog.
Notable & Unique Neighborhood Characteristics
Many things matter about a neighborhood, but the first thing most people notice is the way a neighborhood looks and its particular character. For example, one might notice whether the buildings all date from a certain time period or whether shop signs are in multiple languages. This particular neighborhood in Pala, the neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
Occupations
Each year, fewer and fewer Americans make their living as farmers, foresters, or fishers. But the neighborhood truly stands out among U.S. neighborhoods. According to exclusive NeighborhoodScout analysis, this neighborhood has a greater proportion of farmers, foresters, or fishers than 97.0% of all American neighborhoods. This is truly a unique cultural characteristic of this neighborhood.
Real Estate
Uncrowded roads, rural America and space to be the individual you are. If you like these characteristics, this neighborhood may fit you. With just 40 residents per square mile, is less crowded than 90.9% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
People
If you're planning where to retire, the neighborhood in Pala is a great option to consider. According to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive retirement dream area analysis, it's peaceful and quiet, has above average safety ratings compared to other neighborhoods in CA, offers a wide range of housing options, and has already attracted an enviable mix of college educated seniors. This neighborhood ranks as better for retirement living than 87.3% of the neighborhoods in California. If you are considering retiring to California, this is a good neighborhood to look at.
Diversity
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Native American ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 28.1% of this neighborhood's residents have Native American ancestry.
is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 0.8% 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 96.4% of the neighborhoods in America.
The Neighbors
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 Pala are upper-middle income, making it an above average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 72.2% of the neighborhoods in America. With 14.4% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 59.0% of U.S. neighborhoods.
What we choose to do for a living reflects who we are. Each neighborhood has a different mix of occupations represented, and together these tell you about the neighborhood and help you understand if this neighborhood may fit your lifestyle.
In the neighborhood, 45.0% 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 23.2% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (20.4%), and 6.8% in government jobs, whether they are in local, state, or federal positions.
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 neighborhood is English, spoken by 79.3% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Tagalog (the first language of the Philippine region).
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 neighborhood in Pala, CA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Native American (28.1%). There are also a number of people of Mexican ancestry (23.7%), and residents who report English roots (13.7%), and some of the residents are also of German ancestry (7.8%), along with some Spanish ancestry residents (3.8%), among others. In addition, 11.8% 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 neighborhood spend under 15 minutes commuting one-way to work (29.3% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.
Here most residents (80.7%) 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.
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.
