San Francisco, CA (Merced Heights)

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 Merced Heights neighborhood in San Francisco are wealthy, making it among the 15% highest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 89.0% of the neighborhoods in America. In addition, 7.7% 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 56.8% 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 Merced Heights neighborhood, 44.0% 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 27.9% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (19.8%), and 16.3% in government jobs, whether they are in local, state, or federal positions.

Languages

The most common language spoken in the Merced Heights neighborhood is English, spoken by 49.2% of households. Some people also speak Chinese (37.8%).

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 Merced Heights neighborhood in San Francisco, CA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Asian (56.9%). There are also a number of people of German ancestry (6.5%), and residents who report Mexican roots (6.0%), and some of the residents are also of Irish ancestry (3.7%), along with some Italian ancestry residents (3.4%), among others. In addition, 39.1% of the residents of this neighborhood were born in another country.

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 Merced Heights neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (41.7% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.

Here most residents (51.3%) 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 (12.2%) and 11.6% of residents also take the train 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.