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.
Norton Shores Southwest median real estate price is $470,239, which is more expensive than 87.6% of the neighborhoods in Michigan and 63.4% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Norton Shores Southwest is currently $1,741, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. The average rental cost in this neighborhood is higher than 60.3% of the neighborhoods in Michigan.
Norton Shores Southwest is a rural neighborhood (based on population density) located in Norton Shores, Michigan.
Norton Shores Southwest real estate is primarily made up of medium sized (three or four bedroom) to large (four, five or more bedroom) single-family homes and townhomes. Most of the residential real estate is owner occupied. Many of the residences in the Norton Shores Southwest neighborhood are newer, built in 2000 or more recently. A number of residences were also built between 1970 and 1999.
Norton Shores Southwest has a 14.6% vacancy rate, which is well above average compared to other U.S. neighborhoods (higher than 77.1% of American neighborhoods). A relatively large percentage of housing here is seasonally occupied (12.8%), which can occur in some markets dominated by colleges or vacation homes. If you live here year round, you will find many of the homes or apartments are empty for all or a portion of the year.
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.
People
In a nation where 1 out of every 4 children lives in poverty, the Norton Shores Southwest neighborhood stands out as being ranked among the lowest 0.0% of neighborhoods affected by this global issue.
In addition, astoundingly, NeighborhoodScout's research reveals that this single neighborhood has a higher concentration of married couples living here than 99.6% of all U.S. neighborhoods. Whether they have school-aged children or not, married couples are the rule in the Norton Shores Southwest neighborhood. If you are a married couple, you may find many people here with a similar lifestyle, and perhaps common interests. But if you are single, you might not find many other singles here.
Also, a majority of the adults in the Norton Shores Southwest neighborhood are wealthy and educated executives. They own stately homes that tend to maintain high real estate appreciation rates. Their upper-level careers keep them busy, but allow them to live comfortably. If you're an executive and want to keep similar company, consider settling in this neighborhood, rated as an executive lifestyle "best choice" neighborhood for Michigan by NeighborhoodScout's analysis, which rated it as better for executive lifestyles than 99.1% of the neighborhoods in Michigan. In addition to being an excellent choice for highly educated executives, this neighborhood is also a very good choice for active retirees and urban sophisticates.
Real Estate
Owner-occupied real estate dominates the Norton Shores Southwest neighborhood. In fact, according to NeighborhoodScout research, the percentage of residential real estate occupied by its owner is higher here than in 99.4% of neighborhoods in America.
Modes of Transportation
While most Americans do drive to work alone each day, the Norton Shores Southwest neighborhood stands out by having 91.1% of commuters doing so, which is a higher proportion of people driving alone to work than NeighborhoodScout found in 97.4% of all American neighborhoods.
Diversity
Did you know that the Norton Shores Southwest neighborhood has more Lithuanian and Dutch ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 4.1% of this neighborhood's residents have Lithuanian ancestry and 14.6% have Dutch ancestry.
Norton Shores Southwest is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 5.5% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak German/Yiddish at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 99.2% 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 Norton Shores Southwest neighborhood in Norton Shores are upper-middle income, making it an above average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 81.4% 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.
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 Norton Shores Southwest neighborhood, 44.0% 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 20.8% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (18.0%), and 17.3% in manufacturing and laborer 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 Norton Shores Southwest neighborhood is English, spoken by 93.3% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Polish 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 Norton Shores Southwest neighborhood in Norton Shores, MI, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (19.3%). There are also a number of people of Dutch ancestry (14.6%), and residents who report Swedish roots (9.3%), and some of the residents are also of Irish ancestry (8.8%), along with some English ancestry residents (8.2%), 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 Norton Shores Southwest neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (52.1% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (91.1%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. 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.
