About Oakland

Oakland is a very small city located in the state of Missouri. With a population of 1,532 people and just one neighborhood, Oakland is the 308th largest community in Missouri.

Oakland is a decidedly white-collar city, with fully 90.25% of the workforce employed in white-collar jobs, well above the national average. Overall, Oakland is a city of sales and office workers, professionals, and managers. There are especially a lot of people living in Oakland who work in office and administrative support jobs (17.14%), management occupations (15.63%), and sales jobs (14.45%).

Of important note, Oakland is also a city of artists. Oakland has more artists, designers and people working in media than 90% of the communities in America. This concentration of artists helps shape Oakland's character.

Also of interest is that Oakland has more people living here who work in computers and math than 95% of the places in the US.

Seniors make up 38.45% of Oakland's population, making it a popular place to retire. Because of the prominence of the retirement community, Oakland is good place for those over 65 to settle, as they will find many opportunities for socializing, as well as having access to many services oriented toward seniors.

In addition, Oakland is home to many people who could be described as "urban sophisticates," which are people who are not only wealthy and employed in professional occupations, but highly educated to boot. Urban sophisticates have urbane tastes - whether they reside in a big or small city, a suburb, or a little town. Urban sophisticates support bookstores, quality clothing stores, enjoy luxury travel, and in big cities, they are truly the patrons of the arts, attending and supporting institutions such as opera, symphony, ballet, and theatre.

Because of many things, Oakland is a very good place for families to consider. With an enviable combination of good schools, low crime, college-educated neighbors who tend to support education because of their own experiences, and a high rate of home ownership in predominantly single-family properties, Oakland really has some of the features that families look for when choosing a good community to raise children. Is Oakland perfect? Of course not, and if you like frenetic night life, it will be far from your cup of tea. But overall this is a solid community, with many things to recommend it as a family-friendly place to live.

Oakland is very much a car-oriented city. This is because the population of Oakland isn't large enough or dense enough to support an extensive public transit system. It has a lot of rural roads, and the distance between houses can be quite large, which together tends to discourage walking and bicycling to work. 96.96% of residents commute to work in their own car (and the drive is typically to a job out of town). People also tend to drive out of town for other services as well, such as shopping, doctors appointments, and more.

Even though Oakland is a smaller city, it has many people who hop on public transportation - mostly the bus - for their daily commute to work. Typically, these people are commuting to good jobs in the surrounding cities.

Oakland Information and Demographics

The education level of Oakland citizens is very high relative to the national average among all cities (14.96%): 38.39% of adults in Oakland have a bachelor's degree or even advanced degree.

The per capita income in Oakland in 2000 was $27,583, which is wealthy relative to Missouri and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $110,332 for a family of four. However, Oakland contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.

The people who call Oakland home come from a variety of different races and ancestries. The most prevalent race in Oakland is White, followed by African-American. Important ancestries of people in Oakland include German, Irish, English, and Italian.

The most common language spoken in Oakland is English.