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 Patch-created 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 map is available here.
Cerritos, as the map shows, has a fairly strong rate of home ownership with 80.5 percent of the population living in a home they own. In Artesia, the home ownership rate lower at 56.1 percent. Nearby neighbors have similar or lower rates -- 72 percent in Lakewood, 67.5 percent in Norwalk, 42 percent in Bellflower, 64.4 percent in Santa Fe Springs, 80.3 percent in La Mirada, and 43.9 percent in Hawaiian Gardens.
With the above map on left you can compare the different home ownership rates across L.A. County - the redder cities have the lowest rate, the greener the highest and the shades of orange and yellow are in between.
Do you think a high level of home ownership is important in a community? How do you think it shapes or affects a city's identity? Share your views with us in the comments section.
