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.
Santa Maria is a tiny town located in the state of Texas. With a population of 651 people and just one neighborhood, Santa Maria is the 903rd largest community in Texas.
Occupations and Workforce
Santa Maria is a blue-collar town, with 35.15% of people working in blue-collar occupations, while the average in America is just 27.7%. Overall, Santa Maria is a town of service providers, sales and office workers, and construction workers and builders. There are especially a lot of people living in Santa Maria who work in sales jobs (16.83%), management occupations (11.39%), and healthcare suport services (9.90%).
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!) Santa Maria 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. Santa Maria has few renters and college students. But the biggest reason it is quieter in Santa Maria than in most places in America, is that there are just simply fewer people living here. If you think trees make good neighbors, Santa Maria may be for you.
Being a small town, Santa Maria does not have a public transit system used by locals to get to and from work.
Demographics
The population of Santa Maria has one of the lowest overall levels of education in the country: only 3.54% of people over 25 hold a college degree. The national average for all municipalities is 21.84%.
The per capita income in Santa Maria in 2022 was $17,122, which is low income relative to Texas and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $68,488 for a family of four. However, Santa Maria contains both very wealthy and poor people as well. Santa Maria also has one of the higher rates of people living in poverty in the nation, with 31.17% of its population below the federal poverty line.
Santa Maria is an extremely ethnically-diverse town. The people who call Santa Maria 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 Santa Maria, accounting for 100.00% of the town’s residents (people of Hispanic or Latino origin can be of any race). The greatest number of Santa Maria residents report their race to be Native Hawaiian. Important ancestries of people in Santa Maria include Yugoslavian, Other West Indian, West Indian, U.S. Virgin Islander, and Trinidadian and Tobagonian.
In addition, Santa Maria has a lot of people living here who were born outside of the US (34.17%).
The most common language spoken in Santa Maria is Spanish. Other important languages spoken here include English and African languages.
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 Santa Maria, the neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
Diversity
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Mexican ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 95.1% of this neighborhood's residents have Mexican ancestry.
is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 79.8% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Spanish at home. This is a higher percentage than 98.7% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
Migration / Stability
Some neighborhoods have more internal cohesiveness than others. While other neighborhoods feel like a collection of strangers who just happen to live near each other. Sometimes this comes down to not only the personalities of the people in a place, but how long people have been together in that neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research has revealed some interesting things about the rootedness of people in the neighborhood. More residents of the neighborhood live here today that also were living in this same neighborhood five years ago than is found in 98.0% of U.S. neighborhoods. This neighborhood is really made up of people who know each other, don't move often, and have lived here in this very neighborhood for quite a while.
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 Santa Maria are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 75.7% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 25.4% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 76.8% of U.S. neighborhoods.
A neighborhood is far different if it is dominated by enlisted military personnel rather than people who earn their living by farming. It is also different if most of the neighbors are clerical support or managers. What is wonderful is the sheer diversity of neighborhoods, allowing you to find the type that fits your lifestyle and aspirations.
In the neighborhood, 36.5% 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 sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (21.2%), and 14.2% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is Spanish, spoken by 79.8% of households. Some people also speak English (20.2%).
Ethnicity / Ancestry
Culture is the shared learned behavior of peoples. Undeniably, different ethnicities and ancestries have different cultural traditions, and as a result, neighborhoods with concentrations of residents of one or another ethnicities or ancestries will express those cultures. It is what makes the North End in Boston so fun to visit for the Italian restaurants, bakeries, culture, and charm, and similarly, why people enjoy visiting Chinatown in San Francisco.
In the neighborhood in Santa Maria, TX, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Mexican (95.1%). There are also a number of people of Polish ancestry (1.3%). In addition, 35.1% of the residents of this neighborhood were born in another country.
Getting to Work
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 (30.8% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (87.8%) 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 (6.0%) . 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.
