Colonia Quick Links
New Mexico Colonia Population and Housing Estimates, Maps and Shape File
The Bureau of Business and Economic Research (BBER) at UNM tabulated 2010 Census data for geographic areas that approximate the geographic extent of various New Mexico colonias under a contract with the New Mexico Mortgage Finance Authority (MFA). The MFA has subsequently allowed BBER to publish the estimates, maps, and shapefile to increase the amount of information available for New Mexico colonias. A brief description of the process is given below and a more detailed description is given in the Colonia Population and Housing Estimation.pdf document.
Candidate Colonia Block Selection
The 2010 Census candidate colonia blocks were selected to approximate the geographic extent of each colonia. The selection process was conducted in ArcGIS by overlaying census block boundaries onto ortho-photography and zooming into colonia locations provided by an earlier NMSU study. Block boundary data are from the Census Bureau's TIGER Program, while the ortho-photography are vintage 2009 images from the New Mexico Resource Geographic Information System (RGIS) Clearinghouse (rgis.unm.edu). The maps (linked at left) present the images BBER used to select candidate colonia blocks for each colonia and the shapefile link contains the candidate colonia blocks for each colonia.
It should be noted that BBER has tabulated population and housing estimates for only 82 colonias so far. However, BBER is contracted by the MFA to produce tabulations for the remaining U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) designated colonias and those colonias that have a County Resolution but have not been designated yet by HUD. This task should be accomplished in the spring of 2012.
It should also be noted that some colonias are designated by the U.S. Census Bureau as census designated places (CDPs) and population and housing estimates are available along with boundaries for these areas. The process used by BBER to tabulate 2010 Census data did not use the CDP information and may differ from what was reported for those places by the U.S. Census Bureau.
Candidate Colonia Block Data Tabulation
BBER downloaded block-level population and housing data from the 2010 Census and aggregated candidate colonia blocks for the colonia areas. There is a link at the left to this tabulation in Excel format. Population data include total population counts, number of households, population living in households, average household size, and numbers of households by age of householder. Housing data include total housing unit counts, vacancy status, tenure (with mortgage status for owner-occupied units), and vacancy by type.