Mecca's housing stock is modest and desert-rural, reflecting its role as an agricultural community. It includes older single-family homes and bungalows near the community's center, manufactured and mobile homes, and scattered newer construction on larger desert parcels. The housing is predominantly single-family and low-density, with some agricultural worker housing tied to the seasonal farm economy. There is little high-rise or dense multifamily development. For buyers, the appeal is affordability and space in a desert setting, with the understanding that services and employment are largely in nearby Coachella, Indio, and Thermal. The market character is practical and unpretentious — a working agricultural community rather than a resort or suburban market.

Mecca has no large formal subdivisions; it is a small, unincorporated community laid out along the desert roads and agricultural grid of the eastern Coachella Valley. The community's loose center holds its school, churches, and a small cluster of businesses, while homes and farmworker housing spread across the surrounding fields and desert parcels. Date groves, vineyards, and open desert define the spaces between buildings, and the Salton Sea forms the community's southern edge. Nearby Thermal and Coachella anchor the broader area. This pattern gives Mecca the feel of a single, dispersed agricultural settlement — a working community defined by fields and desert rather than by platted streets and named neighborhoods.

Life in Mecca is rooted in desert agriculture. The community is surrounded by date palms, vineyards, and row-crop fields, and its population fluctuates with the seasonal agricultural workforce that the Coachella Valley depends on. The pace is rural and working-class, with a strong sense of community centered on the schools, local churches, and the rhythms of the growing seasons. Mecca has little commercial development of its own, so residents travel to Coachella, Indio, and Thermal for shopping and services. The Salton Sea and the stark desert landscape frame daily life. It is a lifestyle for people tied to the valley's farming economy or seeking an affordable, close-knit desert community within reach of the larger Coachella Valley cities.

Mecca is served by the Coachella Valley Unified School District, a large rural district that covers more than 1,250 square miles of the eastern Coachella Valley and serves communities including Indio, La Quinta, Coachella, Thermal, and Mecca. The community has its own Mecca Elementary School, with older students attending district middle and high schools elsewhere in the valley. This arrangement gives Mecca families access to a full regional school system while keeping the early grades close to home. For families, the relevant landscape is the Coachella Valley Unified district as a whole, whose schools serve one of California's largest agricultural regions and its year-round and seasonal populations.

Mecca lies in the eastern Coachella Valley, southeast of Coachella and Indio, connected to the region by the valley's highway network including State Route 111 and the nearby Interstate 10 corridor. The community is car-dependent, with no fixed-route transit of its own, so residents drive to Coachella, Thermal, and Indio for work, school, and services. Indio, with its larger employment base and amenities, is a short drive away, and the broader Coachella Valley and Palm Springs area are within commuting range. This road network gives Mecca a practical position — a rural, agricultural home base at the valley's eastern edge, within reach of the region's cities and the interstate that links it to the rest of Southern California.

Recreation around Mecca is desert-shaped. The Salton Sea, on the community's southern edge, draws birders to its shoreline — the lake is a major stop on the Pacific Flyway — and the nearby Sonny Bono Salton Sea National Wildlife Refuge protects habitat for migrating birds. The Mecca Hills, a rugged wilderness area just east of town, offer hiking through dramatic slot canyons such as Painted Canyon and Ladder Canyon. Farther afield, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park and the Coachella Valley's attractions, festivals, and golf are within driving distance. For residents, recreation is low-key and outdoor — desert hiking, birding, and open space — set against the backdrop of the valley's vast agricultural and desert landscape.