Ocotillo is a tiny town located in the state of California. With a population of 215 people and just one neighborhood, Ocotillo is the 834th largest community in California.
When you are in Ocotillo, you'll notice that it is more blue-collar than most other communities in America. 0.00% of Ocotillo’s employed work in blue-collar jobs, while America averages only 27.7% that do. Overall, Ocotillo is a town of sales and office workers, transportation and shipping workers, and production and manufacturing workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Ocotillo who work in office and administrative support (0.00%), sales jobs (0.00%), and personal care services (0.00%).
Another notable thing is that Ocotillo is a major vacation destination. Much of the town’s population is seasonal: many people own second homes and only live there part-time, during the vacation season. The effect on the local economy is that many of the businesses are dependent on tourist dollars, and may operate only during the high season. As the vacation season ends, Ocotillo’s population drops significantly, such that year-round residents will notice that the city is a much quieter place to live.
The overall crime rate in Ocotillo is one of the lowest in the US. This makes it one of the safer places to live in the country in terms of crime.
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!) Ocotillo 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. Ocotillo has few renters and college students. But the biggest reason it is quieter in Ocotillo than in most places in America, is that there are just simply fewer people living here. If you think trees make good neighbors, Ocotillo may be for you.
Compared to the rest of the country, citizens of Ocotillo spend much less time in their cars: on average, their commute to work is only 0.00 minutes. This also means that noise and pollution levels in the town are less than they would otherwise be.
As is often the case in a small town, Ocotillo doesn't have a public transportation system that people use for their commute.
The population of Ocotillo has a very low overall level of education: only 8.90% of people over 25 hold a 4-year college degree or higher.
The per capita income in Ocotillo in 2022 was $12,340, which is low income relative to California and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $49,360 for a family of four. Ocotillo also has one of the higher rates of people living in poverty in the nation, with 43.84% of its population below the federal poverty line.
Ocotillo is an extremely ethnically-diverse town. The people who call Ocotillo home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Ocotillo residents report their race to be White. Important ancestries of people in Ocotillo include Portuguese, Yugoslavian, Other West Indian, West Indian, and U.S. Virgin Islander.
In addition, Ocotillo has a lot of people living here who were born outside of the US (26.71%).
The most common language spoken in Ocotillo is Spanish. Other important languages spoken here include English and Polish.
Many things matter about a neighborhood, but the first thing most people notice is the way a neighborhood looks and its particular character. For example, one might notice whether the buildings all date from a certain time period or whether shop signs are in multiple languages. This particular neighborhood in Ocotillo, the neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
People
An interesting characteristic about the neighborhood is that there are more incarcerated people living here than 99.8% of neighborhoods in the U.S. The United States has the highest rate of incarceration in the world, currently with 1 out of every 100 adults in the country are incarcerated as a punishment for crimes committed. The extremely high incarceration rate of this neighborhood could mean that a prison, juvenile detention facility or other correctional facility occupies a large proportion of the neighborhood, or contains a large portion of the neighborhood's population.
In addition, neighborhoodScout's exclusive research revealed that 99.1% of the adult residents in the neighborhood do not have a 4-year college degree, which is a lower rate of college graduated adults than found in 98.8% of the neighborhoods in America.
Also, one of the unique characteristics of the neighborhood revealed by analysis is that the per capita income of residents here is lower than that found in 97.2% of the neighborhoods in America.
Modes of Transportation
In the neighborhood, many people's commute means walking from the bedroom to the home office. NeighborhoodScout's analysis found that 38.0% 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 99.3% 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.
Occupations
Each year, fewer and fewer Americans make their living as farmers, foresters, or fishers. But the neighborhood truly stands out among U.S. neighborhoods. According to exclusive NeighborhoodScout analysis, this neighborhood has a greater proportion of farmers, foresters, or fishers than 99.1% of all American neighborhoods. This is truly a unique cultural characteristic of this neighborhood.
Real Estate
84.5% of the real estate in the neighborhood is occupied by renters, which is nearly the highest rate of renter occupancy of any neighborhood in America. 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 45.9%, which is higher than 98.3% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
In addition, 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 5 people per square mile living here, this neighborhood is less crowded than 98.2% of America.
Furthermore, the real estate in this neighborhood consists of more mobile homes than 96.2% of all neighborhoods in America, with 33.6% of the occupied housing here being classified as mobile homes. So if you are looking for a mobile home, or you like the look and feel of mobile home parks, this neighborhood might have the setting you desire.
Diversity
Did you know that the neighborhood has more African and Sub-Saharan African ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 15.3% of this neighborhood's residents have African ancestry and 15.9% have Sub-Saharan African ancestry.
is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 0.4% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Mon-Khmer, which is the dominant language of Cambodia, at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 97.4% of the neighborhoods in America.
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 Ocotillo are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 97.2% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 25.6% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 76.3% 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, 29.2% 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 26.6% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations (24.0%), and 10.9% in farming, forestry, or commercial fishing.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is Spanish, spoken by 54.5% of households. Some people also speak English (43.6%).
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 Ocotillo, CA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Mexican (54.9%). There are also a number of people of Sub-Saharan African ancestry (15.9%), and residents who report African roots (15.3%), and some of the residents are also of Irish ancestry (3.8%), along with some German ancestry residents (2.2%), among others. In addition, 13.7% 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 neighborhood spend between 30 and 45 minutes commuting one-way to work (43.7% of working residents), which is at or a bit above the average length of a commute across all U.S. neighborhoods.
Here most residents (62.0%) 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.
