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.
Midtown West median real estate price is $155,219, which is less expensive than 93.4% of Florida neighborhoods and 87.0% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
The average rental price in Midtown West is currently $2,225, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. Rents here are currently lower in price than 67.2% of Florida neighborhoods.
Midtown West is an urban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Tallahassee, Florida.
Midtown West real estate is primarily made up of medium sized (three or four bedroom) to small (studio to two bedroom) apartment complexes/high-rise apartments and single-family homes. Most of the residential real estate is renter occupied. Many of the residences in the Midtown West neighborhood are established but not old, having been built between 1970 and 1999. A number of residences were also built between 1940 and 1969.
Vacant apartments or homes are a major fact of life in Midtown West. The current real estate vacancy rate here is 28.3%. This is higher than the rate of vacancies in 93.9% of all U.S. neighborhoods. In addition, most vacant housing here is vacant year round. This can sometimes be the case in neighborhoods dominated by new construction that is not yet occupied. But often neighborhoods with vacancy rates this high are places that can be plagued by a protracted vacancy problem. If you live here, you may find that a number of buildings in your neighborhood are actually empty.
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 Tallahassee, the Midtown West neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
People
The Midtown West neighborhood stands out for having an average per capita income lower than 99.0% of the neighborhoods in the United States. The Midtown West neighborhood also has a greater percentage of children living in poverty (96.5%) than found in 99.8% of all U.S. neighborhoods. Children living in poverty is one of the challenges facing America, and the world, and in this neighborhood in particular, the problem can be considered acute.
In addition, neighborhoodScout's analysis shows that the Midtown West neighborhood has a greater concentration of residents currently enrolled in college than 99.0% of the neighborhoods in the U.S. With 40.8% of the population here attending college, this is very much a college-focused neighborhood.
Modes of Transportation
If your dream is to be able to ride your bike to work each day, look no further than this unique neighborhood. With 4.0% of residents in the Midtown West neighborhood commuting on a bicycle to and from work daily, this neighborhood has more bicycle commuters than 97.3% of all neighborhoods in the U.S., according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis.
Real Estate
88.3% of the real estate in the Midtown West neighborhood is occupied by renters, which is nearly the highest rate of renter occupancy of any neighborhood in America.
In addition, the real estate in the Midtown West neighborhood really stands out in the way it looks for a unique reason: this neighborhood has a higher proportion of apartment complexes or high-rise apartments than nearly every neighborhood in the country. Most neighborhoods are a mixture of real estate and housing types, but here it is almost entirely dominated by big apartment buildings and complexes. In fact, 76.7% of the real estate here is classified as apartment complexes or high-rise apartments, which is more than is found in 96.2% of American neighborhoods.
Diversity
Did you know that the Midtown West neighborhood has more Haitian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 10.6% of this neighborhood's residents have Haitian ancestry.
Midtown West is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 4.1% 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 96.8% of the neighborhoods in America.
Migration / Stability
The freedom of moving to new places versus the comfort of home. How much and how often people move not only can create diverse and worldly neighborhoods, but simultaneously it can produce a loss of intimacy with one's surroundings and a lack of connectedness to one's neighbors. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive research has identified this neighborhood as unique with regard to the transience of its populace. In the Midtown West neighborhood, a greater proportion of the residents living here today did not live here five years ago than is found in 98.9% of U.S. Neighborhoods. This neighborhood, more than almost any other in America, has new residents from other areas.
The Neighbors
How wealthy a neighborhood is, from very wealthy, to middle income, to low income is very formative with regard to the personality and character of a neighborhood. Equally important is the rate of people, particularly children, who live below the federal poverty line. In some wealthy gated communities, the areas immediately surrounding can have high rates of childhood poverty, which indicates other social issues. NeighborhoodScout's analysis reveals both aspects of income and poverty for this neighborhood.
The neighbors in the Midtown West neighborhood in Tallahassee are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 99.0% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 96.5% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 99.8% 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 Midtown West neighborhood, 34.0% 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 28.7% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (25.2%), and 12.2% 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 Midtown West neighborhood is English, spoken by 90.1% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and French.
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 Midtown West neighborhood in Tallahassee, FL, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Haitian (10.6%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (6.9%), and residents who report Sub-Saharan African roots (4.9%), and some of the residents are also of African ancestry (4.3%), along with some South American ancestry residents (2.4%), 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 Midtown West neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (49.0% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (68.7%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In addition, quite a number also ride the bus to get to work (9.6%) and 8.9% of residents also carpool with coworkers, friends, or neighbors 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.
