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.
Oak Park Northwest median real estate price is $282,859, which is more expensive than 54.2% of the neighborhoods in Michigan and 34.9% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Oak Park Northwest is currently $1,611, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. Rents here are currently lower in price than 49.9% of Michigan neighborhoods.
Oak Park Northwest is a densely urban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Oak Park, Michigan.
Oak Park Northwest real estate is primarily made up of small (studio to two bedroom) apartment complexes/high-rise apartments and small apartment buildings. Most of the residential real estate is renter occupied. Many of the residences in the Oak Park Northwest neighborhood are older, well-established, built between 1940 and 1969. A number of residences were also built between 1970 and 1999.
Home and apartment vacancy rates are 6.4% in Oak Park Northwest. NeighborhoodScout analysis shows that this rate is lower than 55.9% 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 Oak Park, the Oak Park Northwest neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
Real Estate
The Oak Park Northwest neighborhood is very unique in that it has one of the highest proportions of one, two, or no bedroom real estate of any neighborhood in America. Most neighborhoods have a mixture of home or apartment sizes from small to large, but here the concentration of studios and other small living spaces is at near-record heights. With 100.0% of the real estate here of this small size, this most assuredly is a notable feature that makes this neighborhood unique, along with just a handful of other neighborhoods in the U.S. that share this characteristic.
In addition, renter-occupied real estate is dominant in the Oak Park Northwest neighborhood. The percentage of rental real estate here, according to exclusive NeighborhoodScout analysis, is 100.0%, which is higher than 99.3% 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.
Furthermore, one of the really unique and interesting things about the look and setting of the Oak Park Northwest neighborhood is that it is almost entirely dominated by large apartment buildings, such as apartment complexes or high-rise apartments. 80.1% of the residential real estate here is classified as such. This puts this neighborhood on the map as having a higher proportion of large apartment buildings than 96.7% of all neighborhoods in America.
People
One of the most interesting things about the Oak Park Northwest neighborhood is that it has a greater concentration of residents who live alone than most all neighborhoods in America. With 72.7% of the households here made up of people living alone, NeighborhoodScout's research reveals that this is a larger proportion of people living alone than in 99.8% of the neighborhoods in America.
In addition, one of the unique characteristics of the Oak Park Northwest neighborhood revealed by analysis is that the per capita income of residents here is lower than that found in 96.7% of the neighborhoods in America. Also of note, 80.2% of the children in this area live in poverty; an extraordinarily high percentage compared to other neighborhoods in the nation. In a nation where approximately one in four children grows up in poverty, this neighborhood stands out for the depth of the problem manifested here.
Car Ownership
Most American households own a car or other vehicle. Many own two cars or perhaps three. In the United States, it is useful to have an automobile not only for commuting, but also for shopping and getting to other services one needs. But NeighborhoodScout's analysis revealed that households in the Oak Park Northwest neighborhood have a highly unusual car ownership. 29.2% of the households in this neighborhood don't own a car at all. This is more carless households than NeighborhoodScout found in 97.0% of U.S. neighborhoods.
Occupations
The Oak Park Northwest neighborhood stands out nationally for having a greater proportion of its residents active in the military than 96.5% of other U.S. neighborhoods. If you come here, you will notice military people active in their jobs, going to and from work, and in plain clothes out and about the neighborhood.
Diversity
Did you know that the Oak Park Northwest neighborhood has more Russian and African ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 6.0% of this neighborhood's residents have Russian ancestry and 6.1% have African ancestry.
Oak Park Northwest is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 3.1% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Vietnamese at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 96.6% 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 Oak Park Northwest neighborhood in Oak Park are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 96.7% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 80.2% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 99.4% 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 Oak Park Northwest neighborhood, 45.7% of the working population is employed in executive, management, and professional occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations, with 24.7% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations (15.6%), and 14.0% in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the Oak Park Northwest neighborhood is English, spoken by 82.7% of households. Some people also speak Vietnamese (3.1%).
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 Oak Park Northwest neighborhood in Oak Park, MI, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Sub-Saharan African (6.1%). There are also a number of people of African ancestry (6.1%), and residents who report Russian roots (6.0%), and some of the residents are also of German ancestry (5.4%), along with some Irish ancestry residents (4.9%), among others. In addition, 15.7% of the residents of this neighborhood were born in another country.
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 Oak Park Northwest neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (54.6% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (66.9%) 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 (6.6%) . 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.
