This is a small community in a single neighborhood.
As throughout the site, some neighborhood-level data are reserved for subscribers.
What do we mean by a neighborhood?
NeighborhoodScout® uses the official government designation for neighborhoods - the census tract.
Census tracts are small, relatively permanent subdivisions of a county that are defined by the U.S. Census Bureau in conjunction with local authorities all across the country to define real neighborhoods that are bounded to contain areas with homogeneous population characteristics (including economic status, lifestyle, and living conditions). Census tracts usually have 4,000 persons, but can range between 1,500 and 8,000 persons. This is the most fine-grained area for which detailed information is made available from the government, to protect the individual privacy of each of us. Because census tracts are based on population, they vary in size depending on the density of settlement. In urban areas, they are small, and in rural areas they can cover an entire small town or even a few small towns in very rural areas.
Since census tracts are subdivisions of a county, we did a spatial overlay of the census tracts onto city and town boundaries using a geographic information system to properly assign each census tract to its appropriate city or town. Then we named each census tract to the local colloquially recognized neighborhood name for that spot (e.g., Boston, MA (Dorchester). If there was not a name available, we named the census tract by the largest street intersection in the census tract (e.g., Worcester, MA (Lincoln St/Plantation St)
Why we don't use Zip Codes as neighborhoods
Zip codes were developed by the Postal Service for the purpose of delivering mail, but were never intended to define coherent neighborhoods. In addition, Zip Codes can have as many as 10 distinctly different census tracts contained within them. When distinct census tracts are blended together in a single Zip Code, the data reflects their average conditions and often gives a false sense of the area. The result is that potentially great matching neighborhoods can be missed, and erroneous matches can also be produced and delivered to you.
Using census tracts makes great matches possible, and helps people find the areas that are best for them and their families. Because we are committed to providing the highest possible quality and finding the neighborhoods that best meet your criteria, we use census tracts. And, as always, we show you the actual street map of the neighborhood so you know exactly where your best matching neighborhood is located.
What is a Condition Alert?
A condition alert is a condition in the neighborhood that triggers an alert. NeighborhoodScout contains condition alerts to highlight conditions that are extreme, whether good or bad. This helps answer crucial questions about the state of the neighborhood being evaluated, such as:
What are the risks of violent crime here?
Is the risk of home break-ins or other property crimes increasing?
Does real estate here hold its value?
Are the trends in local vacancies or unemployment concerning?
...and dozens more.
Information at a glance that you need to know to invest, appraise or finance a property.
Summerdale is a very small town located in the state of Alabama. With a population of 1,557 people and just one neighborhood, Summerdale is the 260th largest community in Alabama. Much of the housing stock in Summerdale was built relatively recently. The construction of new real estate can often be taken as an indication that the local Summerdale economy is robust, and that jobs or other amenities are attracting an influx of new residents. This seems to be the case in Summerdale, where the median household income is $70,500.00.
Summerdale real estate is some of the most expensive in Alabama, although Summerdale house values don't compare to the most expensive real estate in the U.S.
Occupations and Workforce
When you are in Summerdale, you'll notice that it is more blue-collar than most other communities in America. 35.29% of Summerdale’s employed work in blue-collar jobs, while America averages only 27.7% that do. Overall, Summerdale is a town of sales and office workers, construction workers and builders, and transportation and shipping workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Summerdale who work in sales jobs (14.91%), office and administrative support (13.13%), and management occupations (11.49%).
Setting & Lifestyle
The town is relatively quiet, having a combination of lower population density and few of those groups of people who have a tendency to be noisy. For example, Summerdale has relatively fewer families with younger children, and/or college students. Combined, this makes Summerdale a pretty quiet place to live overall. If you like quiet, you will probably enjoy it here.
Summerdale is a small town, and as such doesn't have a public transit system that people use to get to and from their jobs every day.
Demographics
The education level of Summerdale citizens is a little higher than the average for US cities and towns: 21.42% of adults in Summerdale have at least a bachelor's degree.
The per capita income in Summerdale in 2022 was $36,416, which is wealthy relative to Alabama, and upper middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $145,664 for a family of four. However, Summerdale contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
The people who call Summerdale home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Summerdale residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Important ancestries of people in Summerdale include English, German, Irish, Scottish, and European.
The most common language spoken in Summerdale is English. Other important languages spoken here include Polish and Italian.
Notable & Unique Neighborhood Characteristics
When you see a neighborhood for the first time, the most important thing is often the way it looks, like its homes and its setting. Some places look the same, but they only reveal their true character after living in them for a while because they contain a unique mix of occupational or cultural groups. This neighborhood is very unique in some important ways, according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive exploration and analysis.
Real Estate
The real estate in this neighborhood consists of more mobile homes than 97.3% of all neighborhoods in America, with 37.9% of the occupied housing here being classified as mobile homes. So if you are looking for a mobile home, or you like the look and feel of mobile home parks, this neighborhood might have the setting you desire.
People
According to NeighborhoodScout's research, is better suited for first-time home buyers than 87.9% of neighborhoods in the state. Most homes here are priced below the state's median house value, yet maintain comparably good appreciation rates over the last decade relative to other neighborhoods in Alabama. Along with an exclusive multi-metric measure of neighborhood quality developed by NeighborhoodScout that scores high here in this neighborhood, this means that buying into the neighborhood is not only an accessible option but considered a decent first time home buyer choice for building equity in your first home, while being in a quality neighborhood
The Neighbors
How wealthy a neighborhood is, from very wealthy, to middle income, to low income is very formative with regard to the personality and character of a neighborhood. Equally important is the rate of people, particularly children, who live below the federal poverty line. In some wealthy gated communities, the areas immediately surrounding can have high rates of childhood poverty, which indicates other social issues. NeighborhoodScout's analysis reveals both aspects of income and poverty for this neighborhood.
The neighbors in the neighborhood in Summerdale are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 74.1% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 39.1% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 88.5% of U.S. neighborhoods.
The old saying "you are what you eat" is true. But it is also true that you are what you do for a living. The types of occupations your neighbors have shape their character, and together as a group, their collective occupations shape the culture of a place.
In the neighborhood, 32.4% of the working population is employed in executive, management, and professional occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants, with 29.9% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations (26.0%), and 11.4% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 84.8% of households. Some people also speak Spanish (14.8%).
Ethnicity / Ancestry
Culture is shared learned behavior. We learn it from our parents, their parents, our houses of worship, and much of our culture – our learned behavior – comes from our ancestors. That is why ancestry and ethnicity can be so interesting and important to understand: places with concentrations of people of one or more ancestries often express those shared learned behaviors and this gives each neighborhood its own culture. Even different neighborhoods in the same city can have drastically different cultures.
In the neighborhood in Summerdale, AL, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Mexican (19.2%). There are also a number of people of English ancestry (8.3%), and residents who report Irish roots (4.9%), and some of the residents are also of German ancestry (4.5%), along with some Scots-Irish ancestry residents (2.4%), among others.
Getting to Work
How you get to work – car, bus, train or other means – and how much of your day it takes to do so is a large quality of life and financial issue. Especially with gasoline prices rising and expected to continue doing so, the length and means of one's commute can be a financial burden. Some neighborhoods are physically located so that many residents have to drive in their own car, others are set up so many walk to work, or can take a train, bus, or bike. The greatest number of commuters in neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (31.2% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (79.9%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In addition, quite a number also carpool with coworkers, friends, or neighbors to get to work (8.7%) and 7.6% of residents also hop out the door and walk to work for their daily commute. In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.
SCOUT’s patented match algorithm identifies the most similar neighborhoods to a subject location, and quantifies the similarity to the subject location. This allows analysts to identify the most similar neighborhoods in a local market area for appraisals, investments, and research.
The algorithm uses 273 neighborhood conditions, identifies the dominant dimensions underlying the conditions and calculates the similarity. This captures the true culture and character of locations, economic conditions, and trends.
The closer to 100% means the locations are nearly identical. 80% is a very good, but not excellent match, and so forth.
