Little Pocket, Sacramento, CA

Little Pocket is the older, smaller sibling of the Pocket-Greenhaven area, a riverside sliver tucked between Land Park and the larger Pocket along a bend of the Sacramento River south of downtown. The housing runs to older single-family homes and mid-century builds, with a scattering of prized riverfront properties on quiet streets that benefit from the levee and the water at their back. What sets it apart from its neighbors is age and position. It is more established and closer in than the planned Greenhaven streets to the south, which gives it a rooted, settled feel rather than a master-planned one, and an easy run up Riverside Boulevard or Freeport carries you into Land Park and downtown in short order. Like the rest of this stretch, it leans on the car. The shopping is a short drive rather than a walk, and the neighborhood keeps to itself. The appeal is the calm of a river-adjacent setting a few minutes from Land Park and the central city, in one of the more under-the-radar pockets along this part of the river, where the levee-top quiet does most of the selling.