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.
Median real estate price in the Town Center of Los Alamos is $435,620, which is more expensive than 79.8% of the neighborhoods in New Mexico and 57.8% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Los Alamos Town Center is currently $1,753, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. The average rental cost in this neighborhood is higher than 61.0% of the neighborhoods in New Mexico.
Los Alamos Town Center is a rural neighborhood (based on population density) located in Los Alamos, New Mexico.
Real estate in the Town Center of Los Alamos, NM is primarily made up of small (studio to two bedroom) to medium sized (three or four bedroom) apartment complexes/high-rise apartments and single-family homes. Most of the residential real estate is occupied by a mixture of owners and renters. Many of the residences in the Town Center neighborhood are older, well-established, built between 1940 and 1969. A number of residences were also built between 1970 and 1999.
Real estate vacancies in Los Alamos Town Center are 5.5%, which is lower than one will find in 63.3% of American neighborhoods. Demand for real estate in Los Alamos Town Center is above average for the U.S., and may signal some demand for either price increases or new construction of residential product for this neighborhood.
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.
Length of Commute
Whether walking, biking, riding, or driving, the length of one's commute is an important factor for one's quality of life. The Los Alamos Town Center neighborhood stands out for its commute length, according to NeighborhoodScout's analysis. Residents of the Los Alamos Town Center neighborhood have the pleasure of having one of the shortest commutes to work of any neighborhood in America. 75.1% of the residents have a commute time from home to work (one way) of less than fifteen minutes. This is a higher proportion of residents enjoying a short trip to work than NeighborhoodScout found in 99.2% of U.S. neighborhoods. Less time commuting means more time for other things in life.
Occupations
Executives, managers and professionals make up 75.3% of the workforce in the Los Alamos Town Center neighborhood which, according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis, is a higher proportion of such high-level people than is found in 97.8% of the neighborhoods in America. For this reason, this neighborhood really stands out as unique.
People
If knowledge is power, then imagine the cumulative power of one neighborhood where many of the adults have earned an advanced degree, such as a Masters, law degree, medical degree, or even a Ph.D. This is certainly the case in the Los Alamos Town Center neighborhood, where 41.0% have earned an advanced degree. Compare that to the average neighborhood in America, where just 13.4% of adults have completed a post-graduate degree, and you can see why this neighborhood is a stand out. In fact, this neighborhood has a higher rate of adults with an advanced degree than 97.4% of the neighborhoods in America.
In addition, if you are an executive or professional seeking a neighborhood affording an executive lifestyle, or just wanting to find where other executives live in the area, the Los Alamos Town Center neighborhood should be on your list. It has an enviable mix of spacious homes, relatively stable real estate values, and residents that include a number of wealthy executives, managers, and professionals. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis places it as one of the top 11.9% executive lifestyle neighborhoods in the state of New Mexico.
Modes of Transportation
If your dream is to be able to ride your bike to work each day, look no further than this unique neighborhood. With 3.4% of residents in the Los Alamos Town Center neighborhood commuting on a bicycle to and from work daily, this neighborhood has more bicycle commuters than 96.5% of all neighborhoods in the U.S., according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis.
Diversity
Did you know that the Los Alamos Town Center neighborhood has more Danish and British ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 2.7% of this neighborhood's residents have Danish ancestry and 2.4% have British ancestry.
Los Alamos Town Center is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 6.5% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Chinese at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 96.3% 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 Town Center neighborhood in Los Alamos are upper-middle income, making it an above average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 74.8% of the neighborhoods in America. In addition, 7.8% 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 56.5% of America'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 Los Alamos Town Center neighborhood, 75.3% of the working population is employed in executive, management, and professional occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants, with 12.5% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in government jobs, whether they are in local, state, or federal positions (7.5%), and 6.3% in clerical, assistant, and tech support 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 Los Alamos Town Center neighborhood is English, spoken by 68.7% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish, Chinese 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 Town Center neighborhood in Los Alamos, NM, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (13.8%). There are also a number of people of Asian ancestry (12.7%), and residents who report Mexican roots (10.6%), and some of the residents are also of English ancestry (10.4%), along with some Irish ancestry residents (6.7%), among others. In addition, 22.7% 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 Los Alamos Town Center neighborhood spend under 15 minutes commuting one-way to work (75.1% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.
Here most residents (71.7%) 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 (8.2%) and 5.8% of residents also hop out the door and walk to work for their daily commute. 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.
