Rent or Buy? See How San Marino Home Ownership Rates Compare

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.

San Marino, as the map shows, has a fairly strong rate of home ownership with 90.6 percent of the population living in a home they own. Nearby neighbors have lower rates - 71.7 percent in Altadena, 66.7 percent in Arcadia, 48.1 percent in Pasadena, 67.7 percent in Sierra Madre and 50.7 percent in Monrovia.

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.