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Occidental, CA

This is a small community in a single neighborhood. As throughout the site, some neighborhood-level data are reserved for subscribers.





Overview


Occidental is a very small town located in the state of California. With a population of 1,132 people and just one neighborhood, Occidental is the 740th largest community in California.

Occidental home prices are not only among the most expensive in California, but Occidental real estate also consistently ranks among the most expensive in America.

Occupations and Workforce

Occidental is a decidedly white-collar town, with fully 94.92% of the workforce employed in white-collar jobs, well above the national average. Overall, Occidental is a town of professionals, managers, and service providers. There are especially a lot of people living in Occidental who work in computer science and math (19.08%), business and financial occupations (16.92%), and personal care services (9.38%).

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

And if you like science, one thing you'll find is that Occidental has lots of scientists living in town - whether they be life scientists, physical scientists (like astronomers), or social scientists (like geographers!). So, if you're scientific-minded, you might like it here too.

A relatively large number of people in Occidental telecommute to their jobs. Overall, about 53.82% of the workforce works from home. While this may seem like a small number, as a fraction of the total workforce it ranks among the highest in the country. These workers are often telecommuters who work in knowledge-based, white-collar professions. For example, Silicon Valley has large numbers of people who telecommute. Other at-home workers may be self-employed people who operate small businesses out of their homes.

Setting & Lifestyle

Overall, Occidental’s crime rate is one of the lowest in the nation, which makes a great place to live if safety is an important concern.

It is a fairly quiet town because there are relatively few of those groups of people who have a tendency to be noisy. (Children, for example, often can't help themselves from being noisy, and being parents ourselves, we know!) Occidental has relatively few families with children living at home, and is quieter because of it. Renters and college students, for their own reasons, can also be noisy. Occidental has few renters and college students. But the biggest reason it is quieter in Occidental than in most places in America, is that there are just simply fewer people living here. If you think trees make good neighbors, Occidental may be for you.

One downside of living in Occidental is that it can take a long time to commute to work. In Occidental, the average commute to work is 34.12 minutes, which is quite a bit higher than the national average.

Being a small town, Occidental does not have a public transit system used by locals to get to and from work.

Demographics

If knowledge is power, Occidental is a pretty powerful place. 66.76% of the adults in Occidental have earned a 4-year college degree, masters degree, MD, law degree, or even PhD. Compare that to the national average of 21.84% for all cities and towns.

The per capita income in Occidental in 2018 was $93,089, which is wealthy relative to California and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $372,356 for a family of four.

Occidental is a very ethnically-diverse town. The people who call Occidental home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Occidental residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Occidental also has a sizeable Hispanic population (people of Hispanic origin can be of any race). People of Hispanic or Latino origin account for 11.37% of the town’s residents. Important ancestries of people in Occidental include German, English, Italian, Irish, and Hungarian.

The most common language spoken in Occidental is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Polish.

Notable & Unique Neighborhood Characteristics

When you see a neighborhood for the first time, the most important thing is often the way it looks, like its homes and its setting. Some places look the same, but they only reveal their true character after living in them for a while because they contain a unique mix of occupational or cultural groups. This neighborhood is very unique in some important ways, according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive exploration and analysis.

People

If you are planning to retire in California, this neighborhood should be on your must-see list. For many reasons, may be considered a retiree's dream neighborhood. According to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis and metrics, it's peaceful and quiet, has above average safety from crime compared to other neighborhoods in California, while also offering a diverse range of housing options. This, along with the vibrant mix of very educated seniors and other age groups who choose to live here, makes the neighborhood more retiree-friendly than 99.8% of neighborhoods in CA. If a California retirement is in your future, this neighborhood should be one of the places you visit.

In addition, astoundingly, the neighborhood has one of the highest concentrations of divorcees living here than of any neighborhood, a higher concentration than NeighborhoodScout found in 96.2% of U.S. neighborhoods. This may be because people living here divorce more often than others, or that divorced people move here after they become divorced. If you are divorced, you will be in good company in this particular Occidental neighborhood.

Modes of Transportation

In the neighborhood, many people's commute means walking from the bedroom to the home office. NeighborhoodScout's analysis found that 39.5% of residents worked from home. This may not seem like a large number, but Scout's research shows that this is a higher percentage of people working from home than 99.8% of the neighborhoods in America. Often people who work from home are engaged in the creative or technological economy, such as is found in areas around Boston, and in Silicon Valley. Other times, people may be engaged in other businesses like trading stocks from home, or running a small beauty salon.

Length of Commute

Whether walking, biking, riding, or driving, the length of one's commute is an important factor for one's quality of life. The neighborhood stands out for its commute length, according to NeighborhoodScout's analysis. Long commutes can be brutal. They take time, money, and energy, leaving less of you for yourself and your family. The residents of the neighborhood unfortunately have the distinction of having, on average, a longer commute than most any neighborhood in America. 10.3% of commuters here travel more than one hour just one-way to work. That is more than two hours per day. This percentage with two-hour + round-trip commutes is higher than NeighborhoodScout found in 95.7% of all neighborhoods in America.

Real Estate

Despite all of the residential real estate here in the neighborhood, NeighborhoodScout has discovered that much of it is vacant. In resort or second-home vacation areas, this naturally occurs because homes and apartments are seasonally occupied, and empty for a portion of the year. In non-vacation or resort areas, however, this can be an indicator of property abandonment or a weak real estate market. The vacancy rate here is 33.0%, which is higher than 95.4% of all U.S. neighborhoods.

Diversity

Did you know that the neighborhood has more Hungarian and Ukrainian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 5.6% of this neighborhood's residents have Hungarian ancestry and 4.5% have Ukrainian ancestry.

is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 1.2% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Russian at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 96.7% of the neighborhoods in America.

The Neighbors

There are two complementary measures for understanding the income of a neighborhood's residents: the average and the extremes. While a neighborhood may be relatively wealthy overall, it is equally important to understand the rate of people - particularly children - who are living at or below the federal poverty line, which is extremely low income. Some neighborhoods with a lower average income may actually have a lower childhood poverty rate than another with a higher average income, and this helps us understand the conditions and character of a neighborhood.

The neighbors in the neighborhood in Occidental are upper-middle income, making it an above average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 64.5% of the neighborhoods in America. With 12.2% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 53.5% of U.S. neighborhoods.

What we choose to do for a living reflects who we are. Each neighborhood has a different mix of occupations represented, and together these tell you about the neighborhood and help you understand if this neighborhood may fit your lifestyle.

In the neighborhood, 63.7% of the working population is employed in executive, management, and professional occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants, with 22.3% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (9.9%), and 4.1% in government jobs, whether they are in local, state, or federal positions.

Languages

The languages spoken by people in this neighborhood are diverse. These are tabulated as the languages people preferentially speak when they are at home with their families. The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 89.8% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Polish.

Ethnicity / Ancestry

Culture is the shared learned behavior of peoples. Undeniably, different ethnicities and ancestries have different cultural traditions, and as a result, neighborhoods with concentrations of residents of one or another ethnicities or ancestries will express those cultures. It is what makes the North End in Boston so fun to visit for the Italian restaurants, bakeries, culture, and charm, and similarly, why people enjoy visiting Chinatown in San Francisco.

In the neighborhood in Occidental, CA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (14.1%). There are also a number of people of English ancestry (12.1%), and residents who report Italian roots (6.9%), and some of the residents are also of Irish ancestry (6.2%), along with some Hungarian ancestry residents (5.6%), among others.

Getting to Work

Even if your neighborhood is walkable, you may still have to drive to your place of work. Some neighborhoods are located where many can get to work in just a few minutes, while others are located such that most residents have a long and arduous commute. The greatest number of commuters in neighborhood spend between 30 and 45 minutes commuting one-way to work (36.5% of working residents), which is at or a bit above the average length of a commute across all U.S. neighborhoods. However, there is also a significant group of residents (10.3%) who commute over an hour in each direction.

Here most residents (53.7%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.


Real Estate includes:
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Rental Market
Housing Market Details
Neighborhood Setting
Economics & Demographics include:
Lifestyle & Special Character
Household Types
Commute To Work
Migration & Mobility
Race & Ethnic Diversity
Employment Industries & Occupations
Income & Unemployment Rate
Higher Education Attainment
Crime includes:
Neighborhood Crime Index
Crimes Per Square Mile
Property Crime Comparison
Violent Crime Comparison
Schools include:
School Ratings
Schools In District
Public School Test Scores
School District Enrollment
Educational Expenditures

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