Click on the cities for home ownership details. Red cities have the lowest rates of home ownership. Greener cities have the highest. Yellow & orange fall between.
Proponents of home ownership argue that it ties people more closely to a community and makes people more invested in taking care of a neighborhood.
There are many factors that determine how much of a community is made up of homeowners vs. renters - age of the community, income, whether a town is mostly single-family housing or multi-family housing.
The map above shows the percentage of the town's population that owns a home, based on figures from the 2010 census. A full window view of the Bay Area map is available here. Click each city for details.
Scotts Valley's home ownership rate is much higher than most areas of Santa Cruz County, up at 75.7 percent. Santa Cruz, meanwhile, is much lower at 44.3 percent, with Capitola at 45.3 percent. Aptos has a similar ownership rate to Scotts Valley, at 76.2 percent, with Watsonville down at 42.2 percent.
Do you think a high level of home ownership is important in a community? Share your views with us in the comments section.
