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.
Central West median real estate price is $149,006, which is less expensive than 75.0% of Ohio neighborhoods and 88.0% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
The average rental price in Central West is currently $380, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. Rents here are currently lower in price than 100.0% of Ohio neighborhoods.
Central West is a suburban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Cleveland, Ohio.
Central West real estate is primarily made up of small (studio to two bedroom) to medium sized (three or four 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 Central West 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 2000 and the present.
In Central West, the current vacancy rate is 3.0%, which is a lower rate of vacancies than 80.3% of all neighborhoods in the U.S. This means that the housing supply in Central West is very tight compared to the demand for property here.
Notable & Unique Neighborhood Characteristics
When you see a neighborhood for the first time, the most important thing is often the way it looks, like its homes and its setting. Some places look the same, but they only reveal their true character after living in them for a while because they contain a unique mix of occupational or cultural groups. This neighborhood is very unique in some important ways, according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive exploration and analysis.
People
One of the unique characteristics of the Central West neighborhood revealed by analysis is that the per capita income of residents here is lower than that found in 100.0% of the neighborhoods in America. The Central West neighborhood also has a greater percentage of children living in poverty (77.3%) than found in 99.2% 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, the types of households in a neighborhood can tell a lot about the character and lifestyle of those living here. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood, above nearly every neighborhood in America, has a greater percentage of its residents living alone: 81.9%. This is a higher percent living alone than we found in 100.0% of all U.S. neighborhoods. Often residents who live alone are new arrivals to an area who are single, and often senior citizens who have lost a spouse.
Modes of Transportation
Our research revealed that more commuters here take the bus to work (45.3% ride the bus) than 100.0% of all American neighborhoods. If you like the idea of leaving your car and home and hopping the bus to work, this might be a good neighborhood for you to consider.
Also, in the Central West neighborhood, walking to work is a real option for many. In fact, NeighborhoodScout's exclusive research reveals walking to and from work is the chosen way to commute for 15.9% of residents here. This is a higher proportion of walking commuters than we found in 97.3% of American neighborhoods. Get ready to put on your walking shoes if you move here!
Car Ownership
American households most often have a car, and regularly they have two or three. But households in the Central West neighborhood buck this trend. 52.7% of the households in this neighborhood don't own a car at all. This is more carless households than NeighborhoodScout found in 98.9% of U.S. neighborhoods.
Real Estate
The real estate in the Central 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, 82.9% of the real estate here is classified as apartment complexes or high-rise apartments, which is more than is found in 97.1% of American neighborhoods.
In addition, the Central West 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 87.3% 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.
Furthermore, 88.4% of the real estate in the Central West neighborhood is occupied by renters, which is nearly the highest rate of renter occupancy of any neighborhood in America.
Diversity
Did you know that the Central West neighborhood has more Romanian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 1.4% of this neighborhood's residents have Romanian ancestry.
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 Central West neighborhood in Cleveland are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 100.0% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 77.3% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 99.2% 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 Central West neighborhood, 34.8% of the working population is employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is manufacturing and laborer occupations, with 27.0% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in executive, management, and professional occupations (20.3%), and 17.9% in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants.
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 Central West neighborhood is English, spoken by 91.5% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish, Italian and Polish.
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 Central West neighborhood in Cleveland, OH, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Puerto Rican (4.7%). There are also a number of people of Asian ancestry (3.6%), and residents who report Italian roots (1.5%), and some of the residents are also of Romanian ancestry (1.4%), along with some Polish ancestry residents (1.3%), 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 Central West neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (39.5% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (45.3%) ride the bus to get to work. In addition, quite a number also drive alone in a private automobile to get to work (35.8%) and 15.9% of residents also hop out the door and walk to work for their daily commute. The bus provides a valuable service in the Central West neighborhood of Cleveland by getting a lot of residents to and from work daily, reducing the costs of commuting and reducing some congestion on the roads as well.
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.
