Pacheco

Pacheco is the town just to the west of the Buchanan Airfield in Concord. It doesn’t quite have 4000 residents as of the last census, so really, there are neighborhoods in Concord that have more people than Pacheco does.
On the far eastern end, Pacheco is basically a couple of giant mobile home parks. Diablo Mobile Home Park and Concord Cascade Mobile Home Park stretch all along Highway 680. They are nicely kept with good mobile homes that pretty much are exactly as you would expect them to be when you imagine a mobile home park in your mind. They have swimming pools as well. With prices below $50 K, there is definitely no beating the price either.

Just to the west of the freeway you mostly find squat one story buildings and yards that house things like the Allied Waste garbage trucks, and businesses like auto body shops, flooring installers, rental equipment, an irrigation company and a head gasket factory. In other words, it is the kind of place where people who actually know how to alter physical matter to make it conform to their desires go to work—people otherwise known as “real men.”

There is a however a real residential area in Pacheco as well. This is the rest of the neighborhood that stretches out to the west. Homes in this section sell for about $200K and $300K with few exceptions that slip higher than this. These home are largely a mix between relatively nicely kept Ranch homes of the kind common in the mid 1950’s—medium sized homes for middle class people—and some newer homes from the 90’s.

This is pretty typical middle class living, with relatively quiet streets with nice yards and even the occasional white picket fence. Residents here average about $50 K per year (average for California but low for the Bay Area) and they tend to be a little bit on the older side.

Schools seem to be pretty good here (if I have my school districts right), with test scores being way above average through the schools in the area.

As to crime there have been about 2 dozen assaults in the last six months and a handful of robberies. Overall, a relatively safe neighborhood.

Put simply, Pacheco is good spot for those who work or have lives in Walnut Creek or the Lamorinda area but don’t have the sort of income that allows them to actually live in those areas.