Best PlacesLittle Lake City, Santa Fe Springs, CA Best Neighborhoods

2026–2027 edition · Data updated July 2026

Every neighborhood in and around Little Lake City, Santa Fe Springs, scored on 40 measures of daily life and ranked to fit what matters to you. The coast is close, and the measures below put a number on how close. To work out which city fits you best, start with the best places to live tool.

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Little Lake City, Santa Fe Springs ranks 3,457th of 5,983 U.S. neighborhoods on the BestNeighborhood index. It scores highest on big-city access by a wide margin, and air quality ranks lowest.

#3,457
of 5,983 neighborhoods
BestNeighborhood rank
Defaults weight crime safety, affordability, schools, and weather highest: the things hardest to change after a move
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of 5,983 neighborhoods
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The best neighborhoods in Little Lake City, Santa Fe Springs

Map of the best neighborhoods in the Little Lake City, Santa Fe Springs area, with better matches in green and worse matches in red
Click the map to explore
National median
Worse match Better match
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BestNeighborhood is the only ranking that scores 40 measures of daily life neighborhood by neighborhood and lets you re-weight every one of them yourself.

Little Lake City, Santa Fe Springs' strengths and weaknesses

Top 3%Big-city access
Top 5%The weather
Top 10%Few empty homes
Each measure against the national median. Bars to the right beat the median; bars to the left fall short. Percentiles compare Little Lake City, Santa Fe Springs with other neighborhoods.

Where Little Lake City, Santa Fe Springs ranks high

  • Big-city accessBetter than 98% of neighborhoods
  • Nice weatherabout 272 pleasant days a year, better than 95% of neighborhoods
  • Low vacancyBetter than 92% of neighborhoods
  • Internet speedBetter than 76% of neighborhoods
  • Low property taxBetter than 74% of neighborhoods

Where Little Lake City, Santa Fe Springs ranks low

  • Air qualityBetter than only 4% of neighborhoods
  • QuietBetter than only 12% of neighborhoods
  • Disaster safetyBetter than only 12% of neighborhoods
  • Short commute31.0 minutes each way, better than only 15% of neighborhoods
  • Heat safetyBetter than only 19% of neighborhoods

What it costs to buy a home in Little Lake City, Santa Fe Springs

A household needs to earn about $173,000 a year to comfortably buy the median Little Lake City, Santa Fe Springs home, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate. That runs well above the area's median income of $105,188, so buying stretches a typical household.

Income to buy the median home
$173,000
a year, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate
Estimated monthly payment
$4,041
principal, interest, tax, and insurance on a $673,220 home
Median rent
$2,046
a month, across all home sizes

Where the monthly payment goes

Principal & interest$3,433
Property tax$384
Homeowners insurance$224

Assumes a 20% down payment, a 6.6% 30-year fixed rate, and a 28% share of income going to the payment. The rate is the 2026-07-23 30-year fixed average, series MORTGAGE30US from the St. Louis Fed, which publishes Freddie Mac's weekly survey. Against the median home value, property tax uses Little Lake City, Santa Fe Springs' effective rate of 0.68%, and insurance is estimated at 0.4% of home value a year.

Renting versus buying

At today's prices and rents, renting stays cheaper than buying across the first 10 years here, so the case for buying rests on staying much longer or on prices rising faster than assumed. The chart tracks the running cost of each.

Cumulative cost of renting versus owning the median home, first 10 years. Illustrative estimate.

Who lives in Little Lake City, Santa Fe Springs

Little Lake City, Santa Fe Springs's age mix sits close to the national median, and households here run larger than average.

Median age
40
about the U.S. median of 41
Residents 65 and older
17%
versus 18% nationally
Average household
3.4
above the U.S. average of 2.6

Residents by age

Under 1821%
18 to 3423%
35 to 4920%
50 to 6420%
65 and older17%

Racial and ethnic makeup has its own map. See the race and diversity map for Little Lake City, Santa Fe Springs.


Who works in Little Lake City, Santa Fe Springs, and how

Work in Little Lake City, Santa Fe Springs centers on health care & social and education. Unemployment is low, and employment has held roughly flat.

Work from home
13%
about the national average
Unemployment
3.1%
below the national average
Job growth
+0.5%
/y 2019-2023, slower than the national pace

Largest industries

Health care & social15%
Education13%
Manufacturing11%
Retail trade10%
Transportation & warehousing8%

How people get to work

  • Drive or carpool 83%
  • Work from home 13%
  • Transit, walk, or bike 4%

Life in Little Lake City, Santa Fe Springs

Little Lake City, Santa Fe Springs has more parkland per resident than 74% of neighborhoods. The coast is about 14 minutes away. That concentrates in some parts of Little Lake City, Santa Fe Springs and thins out in others, which the map shows.

Places to eat and drink
106
restaurants, bars, and fast food, about 35.8 per 10,000 residents, more than 56% of neighborhoods
Coffee shops
12
about 4.1 per 10,000 residents, more than 66% of neighborhoods
Parkland
127 acres
about 4.3 acres per 1,000 residents, more than 74% of neighborhoods
To the coast
14 min
drive to the nearest ocean beaches

What the weather is like in Little Lake City, Santa Fe Springs, month by month

Little Lake City, Santa Fe Springs sees roughly 272 pleasant days a year. July highs average about 87 degrees. January highs sit near 71, with lows near 46. The comfortable stretch runs September through July.

Average daily high, mean, and low in degrees Fahrenheit, NOAA station data 2016 to 2025.
Show the monthly temperatures
MonthAvg highAvgAvg low
January71°57°46°
April77°64°54°
July87°74°66°
October85°70°58°

Flying in and out of Little Lake City, Santa Fe Springs

The nearest airport, Long Beach (Daugherty Field), is about 9 miles away and is a small airport. The nearest major hub is Los Angeles International, about 19 miles away.

Nearest airport
LGB
Long Beach (Daugherty Field), about 9 miles
Airport size
Small hub
78th-busiest in the US, 36 nonstop destinations
Average drive
13 min
from the area, with no traffic

The best schools in and around Little Lake City, Santa Fe Springs

Schools across Little Lake City, Santa Fe Springs average a C, better than 43% of neighborhoods.

Top high schools

Grades come from K-12 test scores, with scores projected for schools missing data. See every Little Lake City, Santa Fe Springs school and its grade on SchoolGrade.


Little Lake City, Santa Fe Springs measure by measure

Cards are ordered by how much each measure matters to you, so the ones you weighted highest come first. Expand to see every measure. Percentages compare Little Lake City, Santa Fe Springs against the other 5,982 neighborhoods.


Who Little Lake City, Santa Fe Springs suits

Families

Schools land around the 43rd percentile and crime safety beats 70%.

See the families priority ↑

Remote workers

Internet is fast and widely advertised and 13% already work from home.

See the remote-work priority ↑

Retirees

The weather beats 95% of neighborhoods.

See the retirees priority ↑


Common questions about living in Little Lake City, Santa Fe Springs

Is Little Lake City, Santa Fe Springs a good place to live?

Using BestNeighborhood's default rankings, Little Lake City, Santa Fe Springs ranks 3,457th of 5,983 neighborhoods. It scores highest on big-city access, the weather, and few empty homes, and lowest on air quality and noise. How good it is for you depends on which of those you weight most, which the map lets you set.

Is Little Lake City, Santa Fe Springs expensive to live in?

The median home is worth $673,220. The overall cost of living runs about 33% above the national average. Set against a $105,188 median income, cost of living beats 44% of neighborhoods.

Is Little Lake City, Santa Fe Springs safe?

Yes, Little Lake City, Santa Fe Springs is safer than 70% of neighborhoods. Safety varies a lot by neighborhood. Crime costs an estimated $362 per resident a year.

What is the weather like in Little Lake City, Santa Fe Springs?

July highs average about 87 degrees, and January highs near 71 with lows near 46. That works out to about 272 pleasant days a year, more than 95% of neighborhoods.

Is Little Lake City, Santa Fe Springs good for families?

Schools beat 43% of neighborhoods, crime safety beats 70%, and childcare runs $1,130 a month.


Compare Little Lake City, Santa Fe Springs with other neighborhoods


Sources and methodology

Every measure on this page is scored for each neighborhood, then rolled up to Little Lake City, Santa Fe Springs. Scores are absolute rather than ranked, which means a 60 in Little Lake City, Santa Fe Springs represents the same real quantity as a 60 anywhere else, and the ranking is a weighted average of those absolutes. The map colors come from a national scale calibrated against a population weighted random sample of 5,000 neighborhoods. That absolute scoring is what no other places-to-live ranking does: it puts a single neighborhood, a town, a metro, and a state on one scale, so the same 40 measures answer both which metro to move to and which street inside it to buy on. Read the full methodology.

Little Lake City, Santa Fe Springs detail on BestNeighborhood maps:

  1. Walk Grade for Little Lake City, Santa Fe Springs: walkability, transit, and biking, measured on the real street network rather than by straight line distance.
  2. Noise in Little Lake City, Santa Fe Springs: road, rail, and aviation sound modeling calibrated against federal ground truth measurements.
  3. Conservative vs liberal map of Little Lake City, Santa Fe Springs: precinct level election results apportioned to neighborhoods.
  4. Mobile and cell coverage in Little Lake City, Santa Fe Springs: carrier by carrier coverage behind the cell score.

Little Lake City, Santa Fe Springs detail on related sites:

  1. CrimeGrade: neighborhood crime rates behind the crime safety score.
  2. ISPreports.org: provider by provider internet availability and advertised speeds.
  3. CoverageWatch: the car insurance premiums behind the cheap car insurance score.

Federal and public data:

  1. U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey: income, home value, rent, vacancy, commute time and mode, educational attainment, home age, age structure, household type, industry, and race.
  2. NOAA Global Surface Summary of the Day: the daily station record behind the monthly temperatures and the pleasant-day count.
  3. FAA Passenger Boarding Data: airport size and annual passenger counts.
  4. Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey: the 30-year fixed rate used in the cost-to-buy estimate.
  5. FBI Crime Data Explorer: reported offenses behind the tangible crime cost estimate.
  6. U.S. EPA Air Quality System: five year average air quality index.
  7. FEMA National Risk Index: expected annual loss from natural hazards.
  8. CDC PLACES: disease burden, preventable risk, and barriers to care.
  9. National Center for Education Statistics: school enrollment and assessment inputs behind the school grade.
  10. FCC National Broadband Map: internet and wireless availability.
  11. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: employment and job growth behind the local economy score.
  12. Religious activity uses a proprietary religious signal measurement.