Walnut Creek in Contra Costa County lies just 16 miles east of Oakland and is known as a great place to live. Home to 66,000 residents within 19.5 square miles, the city consists of both highly-developed business centers and wide-open spaces. While its neighbor, Concord, is a larger city, Walnut Creek boasts its own very impressive shopping and business areas and the largest city-owned-and-operated land preserves in the San Francisco Bay Area.
These features combined with its easy accessibility by highway, mild weather and devotion to its community make the affluent Walnut Creek a great place to live in California. With both the Interstate-680 and the SR-24 running through the city, as well as the BART, Walnut Creek provides easy access to surrounding towns and neighborhoods, including Oakland and San Francisco. The easy accessibility also brings many visitors into the city, making Walnut Creek a profitable and viable location for businesses.
Originally dubbed “the Corners” by locals, area was a spot of land where the two roads to Lafayette and Pacheco crossed. In 1855, Lafayette’s Milo Hough decided to develop the area, eventually leading to incorporation in 1914. Now “the Corners” is a hub of activity in the region, with low unemployment, modest home prices when compared to other cities in the area and a multitude of bike paths, hiking trails and outdoor spaces.
If you live in Walnut Creek or are planning on moving to this city, consider that the area is well-educated (56 percent of the population has at least a bachelor’s degree), has an above average income level for its households (the mean household income is $85,685) and many employment opportunities (the top employers in the city are the John Muir Medical Center, Kaiser Permanente Medical Center and Bank of the West). Walnut Creek, being more affordable but still near San Francisco and Oakland, is also attractive to creative types. The community has more designers, media personnel and artists than 90 percent of the communities in the country.
As for Walnut Creek households, the average size is lower than the state average with only 2.09 people per home. Most residents live in single-family housing spaces, while 47 percent of the population lives in multi-family dwellings. The average home value in the city is $600,000, which is affordable when compared the surrounding towns, where the average home is estimated at $200,000 more.
If you choose to live in Walnut Creek, you also have a highly developed and accessible emergency response system to aid you in the case of a disaster. There are five Contra Costa County fire stations throughout the city, as well as a police station and three emergency rooms and more non-emergency hospitals and doctor’s offices. There also are other disaster-relief programs in place to help the community before, during and after a flood, fire or earthquake. Besides Community Emergency Response Team training, there is also FEMA and Red Cross sponsored preparation programs. These programs help you prepare your family before a disaster ever occurs, showing the city’s commitment to its residents and quality of life.