Located at the Southern end of Orange County, Mission Viejo, California is one of the last communities before the Marine training facility known as Camp Pendleton and the suburbs in the greater San Diego city limits technically begin. It is a master-planned community and the second largest in the United States, meaning it was carefully planned and built from it’s inception as opposed to being built slowly but surely over a long period of time. With manicured, tee-lined streets and picturesque homes, Mission Viejo is an ideal place for some to live and raise a family in Southern California.
With a population of just under 100,000 residents there is not much racial diversity in the community of Mission Viejo. Nearly seventy percent of the population is Caucasian, with about ten percent of Hispanic decent and another ten percent of Asian decent. The majority of the population in Mission Viejo also consists of families, with nearly a quarter being minors under the age of 18 and nearly fifty-five percent being residents between the ages of 18 and 44. Ninety-nine percent of the population lives in households.
Considering Mission Viejo was a planned community, the town has very specific data when it comes to number of homes. With just under 35,000 residential households, less than one percent are usually vacant. Just under eighty percent of the homes are owned by residents, while around twenty percent of the other homes are rented by residents. The specifics of the community also gives Mission Viejo a very high median income for residents, with the average household earning nearly $97,000 per year on average. About five percent of the entire community lives below the federal poverty line.
Due to it’s unique history the culture of Mission Viejo is one of a kind. The entire area was owned by a man named John Forester, also known as Don Juan, who bought it after the Mexican-American War in the mid 19th Century. It was used as an area to graze livestock for the next 100 years, until the 1960's and not built upon due to what developers considered to be geographical complexity. It was in the late 1960's that an urban planner developed the entire town in one master plan and constructed many of the homes in the traditional Spanish style. The project was so popular in the 1970's and 1980's that many homes sold before construction on them even began
Because of all this, Mission Viejo has a culture that was somewhat manufactured, though the residents in the town itself have helped to shape this. Beyond the aforementioned history and the homage to Spanish culture that pervades throughout the community in the architecture, those who live in Mission Viejo are still building the cultural foundation of the community itself.
With near perfect Southern California weather throughout the year and access to almost all of the best things that the unique region has to offer, the quality of life in Mission Viejo is also one of a kind—which may be the reason it has been incredibly popular amongst a certain demographic of people for the past few decades. Just to the Southwest are the exclusive and coveted coastal communities of Laguna Beach, Laguna Niguel and San Juan Capistrano, allowing high end dining, shopping and some of the best beaches in the Southern California area, which says a lot for a region with some of the best beaches in the world. To the Northeast of Mission Viejo are snow capped mountains through the winter months which are part of Whiting Ranch Wilderness Park and known historically as the Silverado and Saddleback Mountains. Here one can camp, hike and get lost in the wilderness and then be back in their Spanish style suburban home in fifteen to twenty minutes. Within the town itself is a large lake, known as Lake Mission Viejo.
Many of those who live in Mission Viejo work in the nearest big city of Irvine, which is a short ten to fifteen minute commute. There are a good percentage of people that commute to San Diego or even Los Angeles from the community as well, but these are the types that can afford to only go into their jobs every so often.
With careful community planning comes a foresight for how to keep parts of the community from falling into disrepair. While this may translate as a lack of culture and character to some, to others it’s the ideal way to live. Because of this, Mission Viejo is regularly considered to be, based on FBI data, the safest place to live in America and therefore is the safest in all of California. So if you can afford this unique and beautiful community and it appeals to your sensibilities for a decade or more, there may be no better place in the United States to raise a family.
