La Mesa is a larger medium-sized city located in the state of California. With a population of 54,751 people and 12 constituent neighborhoods, La Mesa is the 142nd largest community in California.

Unlike some cities where white-collar or blue-collar occupations dominate the local economy, La Mesa is neither predominently one or the other. Instead, it has a mixed workforce of both white- and blue-collar jobs. Overall, La Mesa is a city of sales and office workers, professionals, and service providers. There are especially a lot of people living in La Mesa who work in office and administrative support jobs (18.47%), sales jobs (12.42%), and management occupations (9.08%).

Because there are quite a few people attending college in La Mesa, it is thought of as a college town. To the benefit of the many students in the area, La Mesa provides a number of services, amenities and opportunities geared towards their needs and activities.

Not only is La Mesa a city with many college students, but it also retains many recent graduates who are looking to start new careers, creating a decent-sized population of people who are young, single, educated, and upwardly-mobile. This makes it a good choice for other relocating single professionals. Here, these young singles will find many others like themselves, with opportunities for friendships, socializing, romance, and fun.

In addition to being popular with young singles, La Mesa is also home to many people who can be described as "urban sophisticates." Urban sophisticates are educated, wealthy, executives and professionals, who have urbane tastes in books, food, and travel, whether they actually live in a big city, or choose to reside in a small town. In big or medium-sized cities, urban sophisticates tend to frequent art institutions such as opera, symphonies, ballet, live theatre, and museums.

La Mesa Information and Demographics

In terms of college education, La Mesa is substantially better educated than the typical community in the nation, which has 14.96% of the adults holding a bachelor's degree or graduate degree: 27.63% of adults in La Mesa have a college degree.

The per capita income in La Mesa in 2000 was $22,372, 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 $89,488 for a family of four.

La Mesa is a somewhat ethnically-diverse city. The people who call La Mesa home come from a variety of different races and ancestries. The most prevalent race in La Mesa is White, followed by African-American. La Mesa also has a sizeable Hispanic population (people of Hispanic origin can be of any race). People of Hispanic or Latino origin account for 13.43% of the city's residents. Important ancestries of people in La Mesa include German, Irish, English, and Italian.

The most common language spoken in La Mesa is English. Some people also speak Spanish.