Westwood is a very small town located in the state of California. With a population of 1,541 people and just one neighborhood, Westwood is the 696th largest community in California.
Westwood is a decidedly white-collar town, with fully 87.59% of the workforce employed in white-collar jobs, well above the national average. Overall, Westwood is a town of service providers, professionals, and managers. There are especially a lot of people living in Westwood who work in healthcare suport services (28.10%), healthcare (16.79%), and sales jobs (7.66%).
Telecommuters are a relatively large percentage of the workforce: 13.60% of people work from home. While this number may seem small overall, as a fraction of the total workforce it is high relative to the nation. 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.
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!) Westwood 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. Westwood has few renters and college students. But the biggest reason it is quieter in Westwood than in most places in America, is that there are just simply fewer people living here. If you think trees make good neighbors, Westwood may be for you.
Westwood is a small town, and as such doesn't have a public transit system that people use to get to and from their jobs every day.
In Westwood, just 10.75% of people have at least a bachelor's degree, which is quite a bit lower than the national average for cities and towns of 21.84%.
The per capita income in Westwood in 2022 was $19,472, which is low income relative to California and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $77,888 for a family of four. However, Westwood contains both very wealthy and poor people as well. Westwood also has one of the higher rates of people living in poverty in the nation, with 34.32% of its population below the federal poverty line.
The people who call Westwood home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Westwood residents report their race to be White, followed by Native American. Important ancestries of people in Westwood include German, Irish, English, Scottish, and Welsh.
The most common language spoken in Westwood is English. Other important languages spoken here include Polish and Native American languages.
The way a neighborhood looks and feels when you walk or drive around it, from its setting, its buildings, and its flavor, can make all the difference. This neighborhood has some really cool things about the way it looks and feels as revealed by NeighborhoodScout's exclusive research. This might include anything from the housing stock to the types of households living here to how people get around.
The government often provides some of the more stable jobs in the economy. From local, to state, to federal government workers, the government can also be a major employer. What NeighborhoodScout's analysis revealed, is that the neighborhood in particular stands out when compared nationally for the proportion of its working residents who are employed by the government. At 33.3% of its workforce, this neighborhood has a greater concentration of government workers than 99.9% of U.S. neighborhoods.
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 55.6%, which is higher than 99.1% 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 3 people per square mile living here, this neighborhood is less crowded than 98.6% of America. One of the notable things about is that it is one of the quietest neighborhoods in America, according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis and quantitative rating of quietness. When you are here, you will find it to be very quiet. If quiet and peaceful are your cup of tea, you may have found a great place for you.
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Swiss and Welsh ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 2.6% of this neighborhood's residents have Swiss ancestry and 2.6% have Welsh 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 95.7% 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 Westwood are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 80.7% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 17.9% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 65.4% of U.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, 40.9% of the working population is employed in executive, management, and professional occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is government jobs, whether they are in local, state, or federal positions, with 33.3% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (25.6%), and 19.6% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 94.1% of households.
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 neighborhood in Westwood, CA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as English (16.0%). There are also a number of people of German ancestry (12.1%), and residents who report Irish roots (11.8%), and some of the residents are also of Italian ancestry (5.2%), along with some Scottish ancestry residents (2.7%), among others.
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 (34.0% of working residents), which is at or a bit above the average length of a commute across all U.S. neighborhoods.
Here most residents (73.4%) 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 (10.8%) . In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.