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.
Hillside median real estate price is $1,032,870, which is more expensive than 76.5% of the neighborhoods in Massachusetts and 89.8% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Hillside is currently $1,937, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. Rents here are currently lower in price than 89.8% of Massachusetts neighborhoods.
Hillside is a densely urban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Somerville, Massachusetts.
Hillside real estate is primarily made up of small (studio to two bedroom) to medium sized (three or four bedroom) small apartment buildings and apartment complexes/high-rise apartments. Most of the residential real estate is renter occupied. Many of the residences in the Hillside neighborhood are relatively historic, built no later than 1939, and in some cases, quite a bit earlier. A number of residences were also built between 1940 and 1969.
In Hillside, the current vacancy rate is 2.7%, which is a lower rate of vacancies than 80.9% of all neighborhoods in the U.S. This means that the housing supply in Hillside is very tight compared to the demand for property here.
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 Somerville, the Hillside neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
Real Estate
Three-deckers, duplexes, old Victorian homes cut up into apartments. Independent stores on the corner selling pizza. These are some of the hallmarks of neighborhoods with lots of small 2, 3, and 4 unit apartment buildings. The Hillside neighborhood really stands out in this regard, however, as it is dominated by such small apartment buildings more than nearly any other neighborhood in America. This is a stunning visual and lifestyle example of this type of neighborhood. In fact, 52.9% of the real estate here are small 2, 3, or 4 unit apartment buildings, which is a higher proportion than found in 98.7% of America's neighborhoods.
In addition, even if you drive or take transit to your place of employment, many people enjoy being able to walk in their neighborhood. What many people don't realize is that most of America's premier vacation locations are also very walkable. The Hillside neighborhood is among the top 5% of American neighborhoods in terms of walkability.
Modes of Transportation
More people in Hillside choose to walk to work each day (22.6%) than almost any neighborhood in America. If you are attracted to the idea of being able to walk to work, this neighborhood could be a good choice.
Also, in the Hillside neighborhood, 15.6% of people ride the train to work each day. This is a very high percentage compared to most places. In fact, NeighborhoodScout's analysis reveals that this is a higher level of train ridership than in 96.8% of the neighborhoods in America.
People
The Hillside neighborhood has a greater percentage of children living in poverty (57.8%) than found in 96.5% 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.
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 Hillside neighborhood have a highly unusual car ownership. 22.4% of the households in this neighborhood don't own a car at all. This is more carless households than NeighborhoodScout found in 95.8% of U.S. neighborhoods.
Diversity
Did you know that the Hillside neighborhood has more Austrian and Arab ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 1.5% of this neighborhood's residents have Austrian ancestry and 4.8% have Arab ancestry.
Hillside is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 5.5% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Portuguese at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 99.3% of the neighborhoods in America.
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 Hillside neighborhood in Somerville are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 94.0% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 57.8% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 96.5% 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 Hillside neighborhood, 58.0% 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 23.0% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (10.0%), and 9.0% 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 Hillside neighborhood is English, spoken by 69.6% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic and African languages.
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 Hillside neighborhood in Somerville, MA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Irish (10.4%). There are also a number of people of Asian ancestry (9.8%), and residents who report German roots (8.0%), and some of the residents are also of English ancestry (7.7%), along with some Italian ancestry residents (6.5%), among others. In addition, 23.6% of the residents of this neighborhood were born in another country.
Getting to Work
Even if your neighborhood is walkable, you may still have to drive to your place of work. Some neighborhoods are located where many can get to work in just a few minutes, while others are located such that most residents have a long and arduous commute. The greatest number of commuters in Hillside neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (42.9% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (35.8%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In addition, quite a number also hop out the door and walk to work to get to work (22.6%) and 15.6% of residents also take the train 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.
