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.
Oz Park median real estate price is $839,614, which is more expensive than 95.9% of the neighborhoods in Illinois and 86.1% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Oz Park is currently $3,547, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. The average rental cost in this neighborhood is higher than 93.0% of the neighborhoods in Illinois.
Oz Park is a densely urban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Chicago, Illinois.
Oz Park real estate is primarily made up of small (studio to two bedroom) to medium sized (three or four bedroom) apartment complexes/high-rise apartments and small apartment buildings. Most of the residential real estate is occupied by a mixture of owners and renters. Many of the residences in the Oz Park neighborhood are relatively historic, built no later than 1939, and in some cases, quite a bit earlier. A number of residences were also built between 2000 and the present.
Oz Park has a 9.8% vacancy rate, which is well above average compared to other U.S. neighborhoods (higher than 61.0% of American neighborhoods). Most vacant housing here is vacant year round. This could either signal that there is a weak demand for real estate in the neighborhood or that large amount of new housing has been built and not yet occupied. Either way, if you live here, you may find many of the homes or apartments are empty.
Notable & Unique Neighborhood Characteristics
The way a neighborhood looks and feels when you walk or drive around it, from its setting, its buildings, and its flavor, can make all the difference. This neighborhood has some really cool things about the way it looks and feels as revealed by NeighborhoodScout's exclusive research. This might include anything from the housing stock to the types of households living here to how people get around.
People
Of note is NeighborhoodScout's research finding that the Oz Park neighborhood has some of the lowest rates of children living in poverty of any neighborhood in the United States. In a nation where approximately 1 in 4 children are living in poverty, the Oz Park community truly stands out from the rest in this regard.
In addition, the rate of college educated adults in the Oz Park neighborhood is a unique characteristic of the neighborhood. 89.8% of adults here have received at least a 4-year bachelor's degree, compared to the average neighborhood in America, which has 34.3% of the adults with a bachelor's degree. The rate here is higher than NeighborhoodScout found in 99.7% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
Also, think about the people you know personally. How many of them would purchase box seats to opening night at the symphony? How many of them regularly attend gallery openings, or are the first to reserve tickets to opening night at the ballet? If they're like most of us, they don't do any of these things. But if you're among an exclusive crowd of wealthy and refined patrons of the arts, then you'll feel right at home in the Oz Park neighborhood: a neighborhood in which more "urban sophisticates" live than 97.0% of neighborhoods across the U.S. Here, your neighbors are defined as having urbane tastes in literature, music, live theatre and the arts. They are wealthy, educated, travel in style, and live a big city lifestyle whether or not they live in or near a big city. In addition to being an excellent choice for urban sophisticates, this neighborhood is also a very good choice for college students and young, single professionals.
Car Ownership
American households most often have a car, and regularly they have two or three. But households in the Oz Park neighborhood buck this trend. 36.2% of the households in this neighborhood don't own a car at all. This is more carless households than NeighborhoodScout found in 97.8% of U.S. neighborhoods.
Modes of Transportation
In the Oz Park neighborhood, 21.0% of people ride the train to work each day. This is a very high percentage compared to most places. In fact, NeighborhoodScout's analysis reveals that this is a higher level of train ridership than in 97.3% of the neighborhoods in America.
Also, more people ride the bus in this neighborhood each day to get to work than 97.1% of U.S. neighborhoods.
Real Estate
If you like crowded places, then you will probably enjoy the the Oz Park neighborhood. According to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive data analysis, this neighborhood is more densely populated than 95.8% of neighborhoods in the U.S., with 23,678 people per square mile living here. Being a walkable neighborhood can help increase property values for the simple reason that people enjoy it and value it. To put it plainly, despite our love affair with the automobile, American's enjoy taking to the streets, sidewalks, paths, and courtyards of a place to get a coffee, relax, and take in the sights and sounds. And, according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive and first quantitative walkable score index, the Oz Park neighborhood is one of the most walkable neighborhoods in America.
Diversity
Did you know that the Oz Park neighborhood has more Eastern European and Finnish ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 4.3% of this neighborhood's residents have Eastern European ancestry and 1.8% have Finnish ancestry.
Oz Park is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 8.2% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Chinese at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 97.2% of the neighborhoods in America.
The Neighbors
There are two complementary measures for understanding the income of a neighborhood's residents: the average and the extremes. While a neighborhood may be relatively wealthy overall, it is equally important to understand the rate of people - particularly children - who are living at or below the federal poverty line, which is extremely low income. Some neighborhoods with a lower average income may actually have a lower childhood poverty rate than another with a higher average income, and this helps us understand the conditions and character of a neighborhood.
The neighbors in the Oz Park neighborhood in Chicago are wealthy, making it among the 15% highest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 88.0% of the neighborhoods in America. In addition, 0.0% of the children seventeen and under living in this neighborhood are living below the federal poverty line, which is a lower rate of childhood poverty than is found in 100.0% of America'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 Oz Park neighborhood, 62.5% 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 25.4% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (9.5%), and 7.5% in government jobs, whether they are in local, state, or federal positions.
Languages
The languages spoken by people in this neighborhood are diverse. These are tabulated as the languages people preferentially speak when they are at home with their families. The most common language spoken in the Oz Park neighborhood is English, spoken by 78.4% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Chinese, Polish, Spanish and German/Yiddish.
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 Oz Park neighborhood in Chicago, IL, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Irish (16.7%). There are also a number of people of German ancestry (14.7%), and residents who report Asian roots (10.0%), and some of the residents are also of Polish ancestry (7.5%), along with some English ancestry residents (7.4%), among others. In addition, 19.1% of the residents of this neighborhood were born in another country.
Getting to Work
Even if your neighborhood is walkable, you may still have to drive to your place of work. Some neighborhoods are located where many can get to work in just a few minutes, while others are located such that most residents have a long and arduous commute. The greatest number of commuters in Oz Park neighborhood spend between 30 and 45 minutes commuting one-way to work (39.0% of working residents), which is at or a bit above the average length of a commute across all U.S. neighborhoods.
Here most residents (23.6%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In addition, quite a number also take the train to get to work (21.0%) and 14.4% of residents also ride the bus 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.
