New Neighborhoods Maps

These maps show the percentage of housing units that were built in the past five years for neighborhoods in the state’s largest metropolitan areas. They are referenced in California Counts, Vol. 5, No. 1, August 2003, “California’s Newest Neighborhoods.” That report provides much more information on California’s newest neighborhoods. In many of California’s metropolitan areas, the newest residential developments tend to be located near the urban fringe. In the Bay Area, even San Francisco has some new neighborhoods (Map 1). More commonly, however, new Bay Area neighborhoods are located along the edge of suburban cities, as in the San Jose area (Map 2) and especially in the East Bay, where most new neighborhoods are well east of the older cities around the bay (Map 3). Notable exceptions include new neighborhoods in the Oakland Hills (a result of new construction after Oakland’s firestorm of 1991) and new development in the Marina Bay area of Richmond. Metropolitan areas in the Central Valley exhibit a classic pattern of spreading into former rural and agricultural areas. In Sacramento, most new neighborhoods are in the distant northern and eastern suburbs (Map 4), although several new neighborhoods are also located south and west of the city. In Fresno, new development is concentrated in the north and east (Map 5), whereas Bakersfield’s newest neighborhoods are in the south and west (Map 6). In Southern California, the picture is slightly more mixed, with relatively few new neighborhoods in Los Angeles County (where large tracts of developable land are located far from the urban core) and many new neighborhoods in the Inland Empire (Map 7), built between the city of Riverside and Orange County. Orange County’s newest neighborhoods are in its last remaining large tracts of developable land, primarily in the southern part of the county (Map 8). San Diego’s newest neighborhoods are in its northern and eastern suburbs (Map 9).