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.
Lower Roxbury median real estate price is $813,594, which is more expensive than 64.4% of the neighborhoods in Massachusetts and 85.2% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Lower Roxbury is currently $2,045, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. Rents here are currently lower in price than 86.1% of Massachusetts neighborhoods.
Lower Roxbury is a densely urban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Boston, Massachusetts.
Lower Roxbury 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 townhomes. Most of the residential real estate is renter occupied. Many of the residences in the Lower Roxbury neighborhood are established but not old, having been built between 1970 and 1999. A number of residences were also built between 2000 and the present.
Home and apartment vacancy rates are 9.3% in Lower Roxbury. NeighborhoodScout analysis shows that this rate is lower than 41.6% of the neighborhoods in the nation, approximately near the middle range for vacancies.
Notable & Unique Neighborhood Characteristics
Many things matter about a neighborhood, but the first thing most people notice is the way a neighborhood looks and its particular character. For example, one might notice whether the buildings all date from a certain time period or whether shop signs are in multiple languages. This particular neighborhood in Boston, the Lower Roxbury neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
Modes of Transportation
Our research revealed that more commuters here take the bus to work (21.2% ride the bus) than 98.8% of all American neighborhoods. If you like the idea of leaving your car and home and hopping the bus to work, this might be a good neighborhood for you to consider.
Also, more people in Lower Roxbury choose to walk to work each day (19.4%) than almost any neighborhood in America. If you are attracted to the idea of being able to walk to work, this neighborhood could be a good choice.
Finally, would you like to be able to ride your bike to work? If you are attracted to the idea of getting a little exercise of the two-wheeled type while reducing your carbon footprint, bicycling to work might be the answer. But which neighborhood you live in can make this either impossible, or alternatively, a great and realistic option. NeighborhoodScout's analysis revealed that the Lower Roxbury neighborhood is a fantastic option for bicycle commuters, as 4.0% of commuters here do ride their bikes to and from work on a daily basis. This is a higher amount than we found in 97.3% of the neighborhoods in America.
People
One of the unique characteristics of the Lower Roxbury neighborhood revealed by analysis is that the per capita income of residents here is lower than that found in 98.6% of the neighborhoods in America.
Real Estate
Renter-occupied real estate is dominant in the Lower Roxbury neighborhood. The percentage of rental real estate here, according to exclusive NeighborhoodScout analysis, is 92.8%, which is higher than 97.5% of the neighborhoods in America. If you were to buy and live in the property you bought here, you would be almost alone in doing so.
In addition, many people dream of living along a street lined with row houses or other attached homes. Such places do often have an abundance of charm. If you are one of these people, the Lower Roxbury neighborhood could be your paradise. With 25.1% of the homes and real estate here classified as rowhouses or other attached homes, this neighborhood brims with opportunity to find the right place for you. Only 4.5% of U.S. neighborhoods have more row houses than this neighborhood, making it one of the most interesting things about this special neighborhood.
Car Ownership
American households most often have a car, and regularly they have two or three. But households in the Lower Roxbury neighborhood buck this trend. 30.0% of the households in this neighborhood don't own a car at all. This is more carless households than NeighborhoodScout found in 97.2% of U.S. neighborhoods.
Diversity
Did you know that the Lower Roxbury neighborhood has more Dominican and Puerto Rican ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 27.4% of this neighborhood's residents have Dominican ancestry and 21.2% have Puerto Rican ancestry.
Lower Roxbury is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 5.8% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak French at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 98.0% 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 Lower Roxbury neighborhood in Boston are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 98.6% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 48.6% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 93.4% of U.S. neighborhoods.
What we choose to do for a living reflects who we are. Each neighborhood has a different mix of occupations represented, and together these tell you about the neighborhood and help you understand if this neighborhood may fit your lifestyle.
In the Lower Roxbury neighborhood, 30.2% of the working population is employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations, with 24.3% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (23.0%), and 22.5% in executive, management, and professional occupations.
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 Lower Roxbury neighborhood is Spanish, spoken by 45.1% of households. Other important languages spoken here include English, French and African languages.
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 Lower Roxbury neighborhood in Boston, MA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Dominican (27.4%). There are also a number of people of Puerto Rican ancestry (21.2%), and residents who report Haitian roots (9.7%), and some of the residents are also of Asian ancestry (4.4%), along with some Sub-Saharan African ancestry residents (2.8%), among others. In addition, 24.7% 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 Lower Roxbury neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (42.3% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (42.7%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In addition, quite a number also ride the bus to get to work (21.2%) and 19.4% 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.
