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.
Riverdale Gardens / Riverdale Heights median real estate price is $409,610, which is more expensive than 40.4% of the neighborhoods in Maryland and 55.6% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Riverdale Gardens / Riverdale Heights is currently $1,909, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. Rents here are currently lower in price than 84.4% of Maryland neighborhoods.
Riverdale Gardens / Riverdale Heights is an urban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Riverdale, Maryland.
Riverdale Gardens / Riverdale Heights real estate is primarily made up of medium sized (three or four bedroom) to small (studio to two bedroom) single-family homes and apartment complexes/high-rise apartments. Most of the residential real estate is occupied by a mixture of owners and renters. Many of the residences in the Riverdale Gardens / Riverdale Heights neighborhood are older, well-established, built between 1940 and 1969. A number of residences were also built between 1970 and 1999.
In Riverdale Gardens / Riverdale Heights, the current vacancy rate is 0.5%, which is a lower rate of vacancies than 93.1% of all neighborhoods in the U.S. This means that the housing supply in Riverdale Gardens / Riverdale Heights is very tight compared to the demand for property here.
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 Riverdale, the Riverdale Gardens / Riverdale Heights neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
Modes of Transportation
In the Riverdale Gardens / Riverdale Heights neighborhood, carpooling is still a popular way to get to and from work. NeighborhoodScout's analysis reveals that 23.6% of commuters carpool here, which is more than in 96.3% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
Migration / Stability
Some neighborhoods have more internal cohesiveness than others. While other neighborhoods feel like a collection of strangers who just happen to live near each other. Sometimes this comes down to not only the personalities of the people in a place, but how long people have been together in that neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research has revealed some interesting things about the rootedness of people in the Riverdale Gardens / Riverdale Heights neighborhood. What is interesting to note, is that the Riverdale Gardens / Riverdale Heights neighborhood has a greater percentage of residents born in another country (55.7%) than are found in 98.7% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
Diversity
Did you know that the Riverdale Gardens / Riverdale Heights neighborhood has more Dominican and Jamaican ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 5.0% of this neighborhood's residents have Dominican ancestry and 4.2% have Jamaican ancestry.
Riverdale Gardens / Riverdale Heights is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 8.3% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak African languages at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 99.5% 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 Riverdale Gardens / Riverdale Heights neighborhood in Riverdale are upper-middle income, making it an above average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 64.7% of the neighborhoods in America. With 34.4% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 85.1% 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 Riverdale Gardens / Riverdale Heights neighborhood, 34.4% 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 24.5% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations (21.9%), and 19.2% in clerical, assistant, and tech support 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 Riverdale Gardens / Riverdale Heights neighborhood is Spanish, spoken by 40.8% of households. Other important languages spoken here include English and African languages.
Ethnicity / Ancestry
Boston's Beacon Hill blue-blood streets, Brooklyn's Orthodox Jewish enclaves, Los Angeles' Persian neighborhoods. Each has its own culture derived primarily from the ancestries and culture of the residents who call these neighborhoods home. Likewise, each neighborhood in America has its own culture – some more unique than others – based on lifestyle, occupations, the types of households – and importantly – on the ethnicities and ancestries of the people who live in the neighborhood. Understanding where people came from, who their grandparents or great-grandparents were, can help you understand how a neighborhood is today.
In the Riverdale Gardens / Riverdale Heights neighborhood in Riverdale, MD, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Asian (13.3%). There are also a number of people of Sub-Saharan African ancestry (10.4%), and residents who report Mexican roots (10.2%), and some of the residents are also of Dominican ancestry (5.0%), along with some Jamaican ancestry residents (4.2%), among others. In addition, 55.7% 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 Riverdale Gardens / Riverdale Heights neighborhood spend between 45 minutes and one hour commuting one-way to work (34.4% of working residents), longer and tougher than most commutes in America.
Here most residents (57.9%) 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 (23.6%) and 7.4% 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.
