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 median real estate price is $143,940, which is less expensive than 83.6% of Illinois neighborhoods and 89.6% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
The average rental price in Riverdale is currently $1,747, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. Rents here are currently lower in price than 61.9% of Illinois neighborhoods.
Riverdale is a suburban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Chicago, Illinois.
Riverdale 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 townhomes. Most of the residential real estate is renter occupied. Many of the residences in the Riverdale 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 7.2% in Riverdale. NeighborhoodScout analysis shows that this rate is lower than 51.2% 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 Chicago, the Riverdale neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
People
Whether by choice, divorce, or unplanned pregnancy, single moms may have the toughest job in the book. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that the Riverdale neighborhood has more single mother households than 99.9% of the neighborhoods in the U.S. Often high concentrations of single mother homes can be a strong indicator of family and social issues such as poverty, high rates of school dropouts, crime, and other societal problems.
In addition, one of the unique characteristics of the Riverdale neighborhood revealed by analysis is that the per capita income of residents here is lower than that found in 98.7% of the neighborhoods in America. Also of note, 63.3% 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.
Modes of Transportation
More people ride the bus in this neighborhood each day to get to work than 99.7% of U.S. neighborhoods.
Real Estate
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 Riverdale neighborhood could be your paradise. With 36.2% 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 2.3% of U.S. neighborhoods have more row houses than this neighborhood, making it one of the most interesting things about this special neighborhood.
In addition, renter-occupied real estate is dominant in the Riverdale neighborhood. The percentage of rental real estate here, according to exclusive NeighborhoodScout analysis, is 85.4%, which is higher than 95.5% 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.
Car Ownership
We Americans love our cars. Not only are they a necessity for most Americans due to the shape of our neighborhoods and the distances between where we live, work, shop, and go to school, but we also fancy them. As a result, most households in America have one, two, or three cars. But NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis shows that the Riverdale neighborhood has a highly unusual pattern of car ownership. 25.6% of the households in this neighborhood don't own a car at all. This is more carless households than NeighborhoodScout found in 96.5% of U.S. neighborhoods.
Occupations
There are more people living in the Riverdale neighborhood employed as sales and service workers (61.0%) than almost any neighborhood in the country. From fast-food service workers to major sales accounts, sales and service workers make up the largest proportion of our national employment picture. But despite that size and importance nationally, this neighborhood still stands out as unique due to the dominance of people living here who work in such occupations.
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 neighborhood in Chicago are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 98.7% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 63.3% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 97.6% 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 Riverdale neighborhood, 47.7% of the working population is employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support 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 39.0% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations (11.8%).
Languages
The most common language spoken in the Riverdale neighborhood is English, spoken by 100.0% of households.
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 neighborhood in Chicago, IL, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Spanish (0.0%).
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 Riverdale neighborhood spend between 45 minutes and one hour commuting one-way to work (31.3% of working residents), longer and tougher than most commutes in America.
Here most residents (53.3%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In addition, quite a number also ride the bus to get to work (30.8%) and 11.1% 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.
