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.
Fort Sumner is a tiny village located in the state of New Mexico. With a population of 863 people and just one neighborhood, Fort Sumner is the 116th largest community in New Mexico.
Occupations and Workforce
Fort Sumner is a blue-collar town, with 50.90% of people working in blue-collar occupations, while the average in America is just 27.7%. Overall, Fort Sumner is a village of construction workers and builders, service providers, and sales and office workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Fort Sumner who work in maintenance occupations (16.54%), office and administrative support (16.28%), and management occupations (9.30%).
Setting & Lifestyle
It is a fairly quiet village 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!) Fort Sumner 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. Fort Sumner has few renters and college students. But the biggest reason it is quieter in Fort Sumner than in most places in America, is that there are just simply fewer people living here. If you think trees make good neighbors, Fort Sumner may be for you.
Residents of the village have the good fortune of having one of the shortest daily commutes compared to the rest of the country. On average, they spend only 9.45 minutes getting to work every day.
Fort Sumner is a small village, and as such doesn't have a public transit system that people use to get to and from their jobs every day.
Demographics
The population of Fort Sumner has one of the lowest overall levels of education in the country: only 3.08% of people over 25 hold a college degree. The national average for all municipalities is 21.84%.
The per capita income in Fort Sumner in 2022 was $28,170, 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 $112,680 for a family of four. However, Fort Sumner contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
Fort Sumner is an extremely ethnically-diverse village. The people who call Fort Sumner 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 Fort Sumner, accounting for 85.18% of the village’s residents (people of Hispanic or Latino origin can be of any race). The greatest number of Fort Sumner residents report their race to be White, followed by Native American. Important ancestries of people in Fort Sumner include Irish, German, English, Polish, and British.
The most common language spoken in Fort Sumner is Spanish. Other important languages spoken here include English and Italian.
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 neighborhood stands out for its commute length, according to NeighborhoodScout's analysis. Residents of the neighborhood have the pleasure of having one of the shortest commutes to work of any neighborhood in America. 87.1% 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 99.8% of U.S. neighborhoods. Less time commuting means more time for other things in life.
Real Estate
This neighborhood has wide open spaces, few people, and lots of space to stretch out. If you like locations that fit that description, you may like this neighborhood. Based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis, with only 1 people per square mile living here, this neighborhood is less crowded than 99.5% of America.
In addition, despite all of the residential real estate here in the neighborhood, NeighborhoodScout has discovered that much of it is vacant. In resort or second-home vacation areas, this naturally occurs because homes and apartments are seasonally occupied, and empty for a portion of the year. In non-vacation or resort areas, however, this can be an indicator of property abandonment or a weak real estate market. The vacancy rate here is 37.6%, which is higher than 97.3% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
Occupations
It used to be that most Americans lived on the farm, or otherwise made their living from the land, the forests, or the sea. With global trade and an economy increasingly based on providing services to one another, fewer people farm, fish or harvest timber now than at any time in American history. But according to NeighborhoodScout's leading analysis, the neighborhood stands apart from most American neighborhood due to the proportion of its residents still working in these fields. With 14.1% of the workforce so employed, this neighborhood has a greater concentration of such workers than 99.4% of U.S. neighborhoods.
People
One of the most interesting things about the neighborhood is that it has a greater concentration of residents who live alone than most all neighborhoods in America. With 53.3% of the households here made up of people living alone, NeighborhoodScout's research reveals that this is a larger proportion of people living alone than in 97.0% of the neighborhoods in America.
Diversity
Significantly, 1.9% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Greek at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 99.1% 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 Fort Sumner are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 91.6% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 25.8% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 77.2% 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, 38.4% 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 20.9% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (14.4%), and 14.1% in farming, forestry, or commercial fishing.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 63.0% of households. Some people also speak Spanish (35.5%).
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 Fort Sumner, NM, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Mexican (22.2%). There are also a number of people of German ancestry (12.7%), and residents who report Irish roots (11.1%), and some of the residents are also of English ancestry (9.9%), along with some Spanish ancestry residents (3.0%), among others.
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 under 15 minutes commuting one-way to work (87.1% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.
Here most residents (84.7%) 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 (8.1%) . 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.
