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Point Arena, CA

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





Overview


Point Arena is a tiny coastal city (i.e. on the ocean, a bay, or inlet) located in the state of California. With a population of 465 people and just one neighborhood, Point Arena is the 800th largest community in California.

Housing costs in Point Arena are among some of the highest in the nation, although real estate prices here don't compare to real estate prices in the most expensive communities in California.

Occupations and Workforce

Point Arena is a blue-collar town, with 41.99% of people working in blue-collar occupations, while the average in America is just 27.7%. Overall, Point Arena is a city of service providers, sales and office workers, and construction workers and builders. There are especially a lot of people living in Point Arena who work in office and administrative support (14.42%), maintenance occupations (9.62%), and farm management occupations (9.62%).

Another important characteristic of Point Arena is that a lot of people work in agricultural jobs, especially compared to most other communities in America, and there are quite a number of farms in town.

A relatively large number of people in Point Arena telecommute to their jobs. Overall, about 21.79% 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

The city is relatively quiet, having a combination of lower population density and few of those groups of people who have a tendency to be noisy. For example, Point Arena has relatively fewer families with younger children, and/or college students. Combined, this makes Point Arena a pretty quiet place to live overall. If you like quiet, you will probably enjoy it here.

One of the nice things about Point Arena is that it is nautical, which means that parts of it are somewhat historic and touch the ocean or tidal bodies of water, such as inlets and bays. Because of this, visitors and locals will often go to these areas to take in the scenery or to enjoy waterfront activities.

As is often the case in a small city, Point Arena doesn't have a public transportation system that people use for their commute.

Demographics

The education level of Point Arena citizens, measured as those with bachelor's degrees or advanced degrees, is similar to the national average for all American cities and towns. 20.45% of adults 25 and older in Point Arena have a college degree.

The per capita income in Point Arena in 2022 was $26,290, which is lower middle income relative to California and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $105,160 for a family of four. However, Point Arena contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.

Point Arena is an extremely ethnically-diverse city. The people who call Point Arena home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. People of Hispanic or Latino origin are the most prevalent group in Point Arena, accounting for 49.62% of the city’s residents (people of Hispanic or Latino origin can be of any race). The greatest number of Point Arena residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Important ancestries of people in Point Arena include European, Irish, German, Welsh, and Scottish.

In addition, Point Arena has a lot of people living here who were born outside of the US (15.58%).

The most common language spoken in Point Arena is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Italian.

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.

Real Estate

This neighborhood has wide open spaces, few people, and lots of space to stretch out. If you like locations that fit that description, you may like this neighborhood. Based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis, with only 14 people per square mile living here, this neighborhood is less crowded than 96.2% of America. is a neighborhood that is on the ocean, a bay, or inlet. Many times, such places have amenities that bring locals and visitors to the waterfront for recreational activities or to check out the scenery. In some densely populated areas that are less financially well-off, the neighborhood waterfront can be relatively industrial and less open to recreation. In addition to being coastal, is a very nautical neighborhood, meaning that it is somewhat historic, walkable, densely populated and on the water. This gives the neighborhood a very nautical feel, with some seaside and shipping feel, which some may really enjoy the sights and sounds of.

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 97.8% of neighborhoods in CA. If a California retirement is in your future, this neighborhood should be one of the places you visit.

Diversity

Did you know that the neighborhood has more Native American and Swiss ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 3.8% of this neighborhood's residents have Native American ancestry and 1.5% have Swiss ancestry.

is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 0.7% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Native American languages at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 96.1% 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 Point Arena are upper-middle income, making it an above average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 62.6% of the neighborhoods in America. In addition, 9.0% of the children seventeen and under living in this neighborhood are living below the federal poverty line, which is a lower rate of childhood poverty than is found in 53.2% of America's neighborhoods.

The old saying "you are what you eat" is true. But it is also true that you are what you do for a living. The types of occupations your neighbors have shape their character, and together as a group, their collective occupations shape the culture of a place.

In the neighborhood, 34.8% 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 31.7% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations (21.7%), and 9.5% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.

Languages

The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 80.7% of households. Some people also speak Spanish (18.3%).

Ethnicity / Ancestry

Culture is shared learned behavior. We learn it from our parents, their parents, our houses of worship, and much of our culture – our learned behavior – comes from our ancestors. That is why ancestry and ethnicity can be so interesting and important to understand: places with concentrations of people of one or more ancestries often express those shared learned behaviors and this gives each neighborhood its own culture. Even different neighborhoods in the same city can have drastically different cultures.

In the neighborhood in Point Arena, CA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Mexican (23.0%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (11.9%), and residents who report German roots (9.7%), and some of the residents are also of English ancestry (8.3%), along with some Polish ancestry residents (4.7%), among others. In addition, 10.8% of the residents of this neighborhood were born in another country.

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 under 15 minutes commuting one-way to work (48.9% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.

Here most residents (68.4%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In addition, quite a number also carpool with coworkers, friends, or neighbors to get to work (11.4%) and 8.7% of residents also hop out the door and walk to work for their daily commute. In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.


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