Oakland, CA (Civic Center / Downtown)

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 Civic Center / Downtown neighborhood in Oakland are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 74.2% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 31.3% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 83.3% of U.S. neighborhoods.

A neighborhood is far different if it is dominated by enlisted military personnel rather than people who earn their living by farming. It is also different if most of the neighbors are clerical support or managers. What is wonderful is the sheer diversity of neighborhoods, allowing you to find the type that fits your lifestyle and aspirations.

In the Civic Center / Downtown neighborhood, 63.2% 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 16.4% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (14.5%), and 6.0% in manufacturing and laborer occupations.

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 Civic Center / Downtown neighborhood is Chinese, spoken by 49.5% of households. Other important languages spoken here include English, Spanish, African languages and French.

Ethnicity / Ancestry

Boston's Beacon Hill blue-blood streets, Brooklyn's Orthodox Jewish enclaves, Los Angeles' Persian neighborhoods. Each has its own culture derived primarily from the ancestries and culture of the residents who call these neighborhoods home. Likewise, each neighborhood in America has its own culture – some more unique than others – based on lifestyle, occupations, the types of households – and importantly – on the ethnicities and ancestries of the people who live in the neighborhood. Understanding where people came from, who their grandparents or great-grandparents were, can help you understand how a neighborhood is today.

In the Civic Center / Downtown neighborhood in Oakland, CA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Asian (64.3%). There are also a number of people of English ancestry (4.6%), and residents who report Polish roots (3.9%), and some of the residents are also of Irish ancestry (3.5%), along with some Mexican ancestry residents (3.1%), among others. In addition, 60.9% of the residents of this neighborhood were born in another country.

How you get to work – car, bus, train or other means – and how much of your day it takes to do so is a large quality of life and financial issue. Especially with gasoline prices rising and expected to continue doing so, the length and means of one's commute can be a financial burden. Some neighborhoods are physically located so that many residents have to drive in their own car, others are set up so many walk to work, or can take a train, bus, or bike. The greatest number of commuters in Civic Center / Downtown neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (43.3% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.

Here most residents (21.7%) take the train to get to work. In addition, quite a number also drive alone in a private automobile to get to work (20.0%) and 8.3% of residents also hop out the door and walk to work for their daily commute. This neighborhood is distinguished by the high number of residents who take the train to work each day, which can be a very good way to get to work at a lower cost and with less pollution.