California's Halloween trick-or-treat hotspots
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Some areas have an especially high concentration of potential Halloween trick-or-treaters — though San Francisco may not be one of them, an Axios analysis of census data shows.
State of play: 5-to-14-year-olds — prime trick-or-treating age — make up about 12.5% of the U.S. population and 12.7% of California's. But in San Francisco County, they comprise 7.2% of the population.
- That tracks for a city often said to have more dogs than children.
- Other Bay Area counties have higher shares: Alameda, Marin, Napa, Sonoma and San Mateo have about 10-11% while Santa Clara and Solano have just over 12%.
- Contra Costa has the highest proportion at 12.7%.
The big picture: Kids 5-14 make up the greatest shares of the state population in Utah (16.2%), Texas (14.4%) and Georgia (13.3%).
- They account for the lowest shares in Massachusetts (10.9%), Florida (11%) and Pennsylvania (11.6%).
How it works: That's according to the 2022 five-year American Community Survey, a demographics-tracking effort from the U.S. Census Bureau.
Caveat: Plenty of kids younger than 5 and older than 14 go trick-or-treating, but this is the least imperfect way to slice the census data for our purposes.
- It's also a good way to gauge how much candy you might need on hand this Halloween.