Median Household Income Census Edition (Sacramento, Oakland: middle-class, apartments, foreclosures)

[Valley Boy]

Median Household Income from the 2020 Census for the Sacramento Area. Median Household Income reflects renters, owners, retirees, singles, students, and families. So some areas may seem a bit lower than imagined due to higher percentage of retirees, students, poverty, etc. West Sac/Rosemont seems to be smack dab in the middle -reflecting the general blue collar vibe of Sacramento.






Granite Bay $170,504
El Dorado Hills $142,130
Gold River $131,164
Folsom $118,006
Elk Grove $101,776
Rocklin $100,664
Roseville $95,519
Vineyard $92,045
Fair Oaks $89,217
Lincoln $88,991
Antelope $82,095
Orangevale $78,071
Cameron Park $77,014
Davis $75,394
West Sac $73,979
Rosemont $73,166
Rio Linda $72,361
Woodland $71,447
La Riviera $70,855
Rancho Cordova $69,963
Loomis $68,809
Carmichael $68,227
Citrus Heights $65,867
Sacramento $65,847
Foothill Farms $55,474
Arden Arcade $52,694
North Highlands $50,816
Parkway-South Sac $50,293
Florin $47,125
Lemon Hill $41,534

[Igor Blevin]

Sacramento's position is not surprising. Sacramento has had a ton of flight by upper income and upper-middle income earners to Roseville/Rocklin in the north and Fair Oaks/Folsom in the east (and adjoining areas)

My only surprise is that Elk Grove is not lower on the list, as I had thought there has been a lot of upper-middle income flight from there. It is apparently less than I had assumed.

It is interesting that Rancho Cordova is now above Carmicael due to all the new tech companies Rancho Cordova has attracted in recent years.

Arden-Arcade has sure seen better days. It seems like it has fallen a lot since I was a kid in the 1970s. It was never upscale, but it sure was a lot better than that. It used to be solidly middle class blue collar.

Woodland was nothing in the 1970s, but then neither was Roseville and Folsom didn't exist for all intents and purposes. Fair Oaks was bigger than Folsom.

FWIW, I shopped at Gold River my last 2 years in Sacramento, and even then it had a growing homeless problem around the retail areas. At least it was contained to that more or less, and didn't spill off into the neighboring subdivisions that I ever saw.

[Valley Boy]

No surprises for Elk Grove. It gets a bad rap for being in South County, but Income wise it has been similar to Roseville and Rocklin for decades.

Arden-Arcade was a shocker for me. There are some really wealthy areas, but there are some seriously low income apartments west of Watt Ave. Carmichael and Loomis are much lower than I expected.

Keep in mind some of these communities like Fair Oaks and Carmichael have over 20% of the population over 65 and living on fixed income, versus the 10-12% over 65 in Roseville or Elk Grove. So many of these communities might rank higher/lower if we were going off say, individual total net worth.

[wburg]

Yes, Sacramento had a lot of "white flight" in the late 20th Century and that trend has continued in the 21st even as suburbs like Elk Grove grew enormously more diverse, although if you broke down Sacramento by neighborhood area you'd find significant income disparities there too, with wealthier areas like old-money Land Park and East Sacramento and new-money North Natomas, with poorer neighborhoods in North Sacramento, South Sacramento and the central city (where most of the people the "white flight" crowd were flying from still live.) The assumption that places like Elk Grove would be lower on the list may stem from its greater diversity, but as it turns out, new-growth cities that prioritize large-lot single family homes over multifamily housing become a barrier to lower-income folks moving there, especially if it's new housing stock--and something like 90% of Elk Grove's housing stock was still farmland 30 years ago. But that's a temporary solution, as we'll see below.



This set of figures is also a long-term effect of the assumption that if you simply don't bother building housing for people who aren't rich, those folks can't move there and thus become someone else's problem (in this case, Sacramento's) to solve, and the tent cities we see are a direct result of that assumption. However, as we see from the results for older white-flight suburbs like Arden-Arcade, Citrus Heights and Carmichael, surprising to some, is that suburbs are basically a disposable product: as they get older, the building stock gets less desirable and the wealthy will keep retreating as long as there are public-subsidized highways to carry them farther away. So the formerly lily-white neighborhoods of Carmichael and Arden-Arcade, or lower-middle-class white midcentury suburbs like Citrus Heights, drop in incomes, and the shopping centers that were filled with cars and department stores get filled with discount retailers and encampments. But the disposability of the commuter suburb is great news for the people who build and sell them, and since they're the wealthiest folks in the region, they fund the election campaigns for local government, spending the most lavishly on the ones who facilitate outward growth and don't spend on transit, affordable housing, or other problems they can push towards the urban core. But eventually this Ponzi scheme collapses on a regional basis.

[Valley Boy]

Elk Grove got a bad rep after the 2008 crash. Despite foreclosures, squatters, and marijuana grows running rampant in the entire Central Valley, Elk Grove got singled out for a hit piece article, ”Suburbia, the next slum”.

The article basically focused on a couple high profile incidents, used extreme hyperbole, and wrote off Elk Grove/suburbia et all. This, plus the usual complaints from old timers about the growth/change, diversity, and proximity to South Sac generally caused many to write it off.

I think what helped Elk Grove was that folks incorporated into a city. The BOOMBURBIA folks bemoaned 20 years ago now houses a sizable chunk of the county's Asian middle class. Elk Grove bounced back just like everywhere else. The older parts of town have held up okay, about as well as older parts of Roseville. Local control is key, being at the mercy of the County and San Juan Unified is sketchy IMO.

What hurts Arden, Carmichael, and Citrus Heights is that San Juan has issues. Largely do the presence of low income housing in parts of those areas. This plus an aging population that has lead to enrollment decline. The boundaries keep having to get tweaked, and it can be extremely difficult to find above average K-12 schools, despite being in an okay neighborhood. This generally turns off middle class parents and results in areas becoming more blue collar/lower middle class, filled with rental properties, etc.

[Chimérique]

Originally Posted by Valley Boy

What hurts Arden, Carmichael, and Citrus Heights is that San Juan has issues. Largely do the presence of low income housing in parts of those areas. This plus an aging population that has lead to enrollment decline. The boundaries keep having to get tweaked, and it can be extremely difficult to find above average K-12 schools, despite being in an okay neighborhood. This generally turns off middle class parents and results in areas becoming more blue collar/lower middle class, filled with rental properties, etc.

You can thank the powers that be in Sacramento as they follow the Oakland-Berkeley model. Just a few nice neighborhoods surrounded by your favorite phrase "blue collar" low-income. This used to be restricted to the Sacramento City limits, but now we see unincorporated Sacramento suffering as well.

The difference between Sac and Oakland/Berkeley are they have great SF Bay views, hills, all year mild temps, and some really rich people who seem to love being surrounded by tents, low-income, "blue-collar" and non-working, or barely ever-worked people who are supported by tax payers.

[Valley Boy]

Originally Posted by Chimérique

You can thank the powers that be in Sacramento as they follow the Oakland-Berkeley model. Just a few nice neighborhoods surrounded by your favorite phrase "blue collar" low-income. This used to be restricted to the Sacramento City limits, but now we see unincorporated Sacramento suffering as well.

The difference between Sac and Oakland/Berkeley are they have great SF Bay views, hills, all year mild temps, and some really rich people who seem to love being surrounded by tents, low-income, "blue-collar" and non-working, or barely ever-worked people who are supported by tax payers.

Well I can tell you when I arrived in the region 22 years ago, Arden (west of Watt), Marconi Ave in Carmichael, and Citrus Heights had a bad rep. The income disparities in Arden and Carmichael along the river versus other parts was there, just not as extreme as now. Fair Oaks East of Sunrise was good back then and more pricey too.

It's crazy how much Granite Bay took off. They used to be neck and neck with El Dorado Hills. I think it is because EDH south of 50, the new homes are not really mansions. Where as what little new housing that was added in the last 10 years in Granite Bay has been largely very high end. Now it has a higher median household income than Pleasanton, CA! Where as as EDH is more comparable to Livermore and Folsom to Brentwood.

[Igor Blevin]

Originally Posted by Valley Boy

Well I can tell you when I arrived in the region 22 years ago, Arden (west of Watt), Marconi Ave in Carmichael, and Citrus Heights had a bad rep. The income disparities in Arden and Carmichael along the river versus other parts was there, just not as extreme as now. Fair Oaks East of Sunrise was good back then and more pricey too.

It's crazy how much Granite Bay took off. They used to be neck and neck with El Dorado Hills. I think it is because EDH south of 50, the new homes are not really mansions. Where as what little new housing that was added in the last 10 years in Granite Bay has been largely very high end. Now it has a higher median household income than Pleasanton, CA! Where as as EDH is more comparable to Livermore and Folsom to Brentwood.

Granite Bay had a big head start on El Dorado Hills. Development in EDH only began in 1990. It was just rural hillside before that. Granite Bay was already top dog in 1980.

[Valley Boy]

Originally Posted by Igor Blevin

Granite Bay had a big head start on El Dorado Hills. Development in EDH only began in 1990. It was just rural hillside before that. Granite Bay was already top dog in 1980.

True, another thing is that Granite Bay's population has only grown by a few thousand in the last 20 years. Very little building, besides large homes on large lots. So with little building going on, the land has a higher premium.

Meanwhile EDH has grown by over 30,000 in 20 years!

[norcalsocal]

Something tells me that the median household income in the newer parts of West Sacramento is quite close to the Elk Grove numbers and the median household income in the newer parts of Folsom/ Rocklin/Roseville is probably higher than the numbers in Elk Grove. On the other hand, Davis' median household income is probably heavily weighted down by lower incomes of students, postdocs, and junior researchers...