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.
Valley Mills East median real estate price is $222,327, which is more expensive than 48.4% of the neighborhoods in Indiana and 25.3% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Valley Mills East is currently $1,947, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. The average rental cost in this neighborhood is higher than 84.6% of the neighborhoods in Indiana.
Valley Mills East is a rural neighborhood (based on population density) located in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Valley Mills East 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 owner occupied. Many of the residences in the Valley Mills East neighborhood are newer, built in 2000 or more recently. A number of residences were also built between 1970 and 1999.
Real estate vacancies in Valley Mills East are 4.9%, which is lower than one will find in 67.2% of American neighborhoods. Demand for real estate in Valley Mills East is above average for the U.S., and may signal some demand for either price increases or new construction of residential product for this neighborhood.
Notable & Unique Neighborhood Characteristics
The way a neighborhood looks and feels when you walk or drive around it, from its setting, its buildings, and its flavor, can make all the difference. This neighborhood has some really cool things about the way it looks and feels as revealed by NeighborhoodScout's exclusive research. This might include anything from the housing stock to the types of households living here to how people get around.
Occupations
NeighborhoodScout's exclusive research identifies the Valley Mills East neighborhood as having one of the highest concentrations of people employed in manufacturing or as laborers of any neighborhood in America. In fact, despite the loss of manufacturing jobs nationally, this neighborhood has 52.0% of its working residents employed in such fields, which is a higher proportion than 99.2% of American neighborhoods.
Modes of Transportation
In the Valley Mills East neighborhood, carpooling is still a popular way to get to and from work. NeighborhoodScout's analysis reveals that 29.4% of commuters carpool here, which is more than in 98.7% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
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 Valley Mills East neighborhood has a highly unusual pattern of car ownership. 26.9% of the households in this neighborhood don't own a car at all. This is more carless households than NeighborhoodScout found in 96.7% of U.S. neighborhoods.
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 Valley Mills East neighborhood, a greater proportion of the residents living here today did not live here five years ago than is found in 96.8% of U.S. Neighborhoods. This neighborhood, more than almost any other in America, has new residents from other areas.
Diversity
Significantly, 0.8% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Japanese 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 Valley Mills East neighborhood in Indianapolis are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 88.5% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 32.3% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 83.4% of U.S. neighborhoods.
A neighborhood is far different if it is dominated by enlisted military personnel rather than people who earn their living by farming. It is also different if most of the neighbors are clerical support or managers. What is wonderful is the sheer diversity of neighborhoods, allowing you to find the type that fits your lifestyle and aspirations.
In the Valley Mills East neighborhood, 52.0% of the working population is employed in manufacturing and laborer 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 19.0% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in executive, management, and professional occupations (14.9%), and 14.1% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the Valley Mills East neighborhood is English, spoken by 89.7% of households. Some people also speak Spanish (5.5%).
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 Valley Mills East neighborhood in Indianapolis, IN, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Irish (12.1%). There are also a number of people of English ancestry (11.8%), and residents who report German roots (9.5%), and some of the residents are also of Italian ancestry (5.7%), along with some Mexican ancestry residents (5.3%), 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 Valley Mills East neighborhood spend between 30 and 45 minutes commuting one-way to work (43.2% of working residents), which is at or a bit above the average length of a commute across all U.S. neighborhoods.
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 (29.4%) . 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.
