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.
Summit Hills median real estate price is $304,529, which is more expensive than 55.5% of the neighborhoods in South Carolina and 38.3% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Summit Hills is currently $1,918, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. The average rental cost in this neighborhood is higher than 65.7% of the neighborhoods in South Carolina.
Summit Hills is a suburban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Columbia, South Carolina.
Summit Hills real estate is primarily made up of medium sized (three or four bedroom) to large (four, five or more bedroom) single-family homes and townhomes. Most of the residential real estate is owner occupied. Many of the residences in the Summit Hills neighborhood are newer, built in 2000 or more recently. A number of residences were also built between 1970 and 1999.
In Summit Hills, the current vacancy rate is 2.4%, which is a lower rate of vacancies than 83.1% of all neighborhoods in the U.S. This means that the housing supply in Summit Hills 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 Columbia, the Summit Hills neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
Occupations
The government often provides some of the more stable jobs in the economy. From local, to state, to federal government workers, the government can also be a major employer. What NeighborhoodScout's analysis revealed, is that the Summit Hills neighborhood in particular stands out when compared nationally for the proportion of its working residents who are employed by the government. At 22.4% of its workforce, this neighborhood has a greater concentration of government workers than 99.4% of U.S. neighborhoods.
Furthermore, with 1.8% of employed workers living in the Summit Hills neighborhood active in the military, this neighborhood has the distinction of having a higher proportion of people in the military than 95.8% of American neighborhoods. This is a major shaper of the neighborhood's culture and character.
Real Estate
If you like the look and ambience of new homes and newly built neighborhoods, you will love the Summit Hills neighborhood. A whopping 87.0% of the homes and other residential real estate here were built after 1999, which is a higher proportion of new homes then you will find in 98.3% of the neighborhoods in the U.S. Everything here just feels new. In fact, the concentration of newer homes here is so great that they completely dominate the landscape. In most neighborhoods, there is a mixture of ages of residential real estate, but here it is almost completely built during one time frame: 2000 through today.
People
With more than 1.6% of residents living with a same sex partner, Summit Hills is truly a neighborhood that stands out from the rest in this regard. In fact, exclusive analysis by NeighborhoodScout reveals that this neighborhood has a greater concentration of same sex couples than 95.2% of U.S. neighborhoods.
Diversity
Did you know that the Summit Hills neighborhood has more Jamaican ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 4.0% of this neighborhood's residents have Jamaican ancestry.
Summit Hills is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 1.1% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Russian at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 96.2% 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 Summit Hills neighborhood in Columbia are middle-income, making it a moderate income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 45.8% of the neighborhoods in America. In addition, 8.5% of the children seventeen and under living in this neighborhood are living below the federal poverty line, which is a lower rate of childhood poverty than is found in 53.8% of America'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 Summit Hills neighborhood, 49.4% of the working population is employed in executive, management, and professional occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is government jobs, whether they are in local, state, or federal positions, with 22.4% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (19.4%), and 15.7% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the Summit Hills neighborhood is English, spoken by 91.2% of households. Some people also speak Spanish (4.6%).
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 Summit Hills neighborhood in Columbia, SC, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Jamaican (4.0%). There are also a number of people of Mexican ancestry (3.8%), and residents who report German roots (3.6%), and some of the residents are also of Asian ancestry (2.1%), along with some English ancestry residents (2.1%), among others.
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 Summit Hills neighborhood spend between 30 and 45 minutes commuting one-way to work (36.4% of working residents), which is at or a bit above the average length of a commute across all U.S. neighborhoods.
Here most residents (74.7%) 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 (11.2%) . 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.
