Palo Alto, California is a medium-sized city with a population of 66,649 inhabitants. If you are looking for a family friendly city, Palo Alto might be a good fit as 83% of the population over 15 years old are married, and 50% have kids who are 18 years old or younger. The average American spends an average of about 26 minutes on their one way commute each day. Lower travel times to work can increase overall happiness and allow for more time to be spent with family. While living in Palo Alto, your commute times will be about average with a one way commute time of 24 minutes.
If you’re considering moving to any new city, it could be a very discouraging task. However, it could also be a fulfilling experience if you are willing to get to know the area before actually living in Palo Alto, California. To help you find the best places to live in and around Palo Alto, AreaVibes has created a livability score using key metrics like crime, cost of living, weather, education and more.
Palo Alto, CA receives 85/100 for its livability score; this results in a ranking of #5 in California and #407 in the USA. Clearly, Palo Alto is doing something right, as this score ranks well above the average of most cities. Palo Alto also ranks in the top 10 percent of all cities, which is no small feat! If we probe a little deeper into each category within the livability score, we see that Palo Alto has higher than average scores for the following: amenities (A+), crime (A-), weather (B+), education (A+) and employment (A+). There are some categories that Palo Alto scores poorly for, including: cost of living (F). It might be worth taking a closer look to find out why.
Location, location, location - possibly the three most important words in your search for a new place to live. Fortunately, in Palo Alto, there is no shortage of amazing local amenities and interesting things to do. Some of the notable things to do include: Stanford University, The Stanford Shopping Center, and Undiscovered Country Bike Tours.
Crime rates can be the deciding factor for anyone looking to relocate to a new area. Palo Alto gets top scores for their low violent crime rates of 133 crimes per 100,000 residents, which are significantly lower than the national average.
The Palo Alto unemployment rate (1.33%) has continued to decrease over the years and is now well below the national average. Finding a new job in the area might just be easier than you thought!
Knowing that the Palo Alto schools rank highly for test scores plays an important factor in deciding if this area is the right place to live. The average school test scores are 82%, which is far higher than the national average.
Being close to public transportation, grocery stores, parks and other conveniences are all important when weighing your options for a new home in Palo Alto. Before you determine if any of these amenities are available in the area, you will also want to know if the real estate prices in Palo Alto are affordable. Median real estate prices in Palo Alto come in at $1,702,100, which is 315.9% higher than the California average. The home price to income ratio compares the median home prices to the median household income. In Palo Alto, the home price to income ratio is 12.4, which is 93.8% higher than the California average. For most people, purchasing a new home is the biggest investment they will make in their lifetime. Taking a look at overall real estate appreciation rates in Palo Alto will offer some insight into determining if your home purchase will be a solid investment for years to come. In Palo Alto, the year-over-year appreciation rates were 10.8%, and the 5 year appreciation rates came in at 13.8%.
| Statistic | Palo Alto | California | National |
| Average one way commute | 24min | 28min | 26min |
| Workers who drive to work | 65.2% | 73.5% | 76.4% |
| Workers who carpool | 6.6% | 10.6% | 9.3% |
| Workers who take public transit | 5.3% | 5.2% | 5.1% |
| Workers who bicycle | 8.8% | 1.1% | 0.6% |
| Workers who walk | 5.0% | 2.7% | 2.8% |
| Working from home | 7.8% | 5.4% | 4.6% |
| Walk | Bike | Compact | Car | S.U.V. | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Distance | |||||
| Duration | |||||
| Cost/Month |
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