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.
Upper Center / Columbia median real estate price is $1,393,491, which is more expensive than 79.5% of the neighborhoods in California and 95.7% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Upper Center / Columbia is currently $4,634, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. The average rental cost in this neighborhood is higher than 85.0% of the neighborhoods in California.
Upper Center / Columbia is a suburban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Castro Valley, California.
Upper Center / Columbia real estate is primarily made up of medium sized (three or four bedroom) to large (four, five or more bedroom) single-family homes and small apartment buildings. Most of the residential real estate is owner occupied. Many of the residences in the Upper Center / Columbia neighborhood are older, well-established, built between 1940 and 1969. A number of residences were also built between 1970 and 1999.
In Upper Center / Columbia, the current vacancy rate is 2.2%, which is a lower rate of vacancies than 85.3% of all neighborhoods in the U.S. This means that the housing supply in Upper Center / Columbia 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
According to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis, Upper Center / Columbia is among the best neighborhoods for families in California. In fact, this neighborhood is more family-friendly than 98.3% of neighborhoods in the entire state of California. Its combination of top public schools, low crime rates, and owner-occupied single family homes gives this area the look and feel of a "Leave It to Beaver" episode. Many other families also live here, making it easy to socialize and develop a strong sense of community. In addition, the high number of college-educated parents influences the academic success of the local schools. Overall, you will find all of the amenities a family needs to thrive in the Upper Center / Columbia neighborhood. In addition to being an excellent choice for families with school-aged children, this neighborhood is also a very good choice for urban sophisticates and highly educated executives.
In addition, wealth makes most things in life easier, and a few things harder. If you are wealthy and enjoy keeping up with the Jones', this neighborhood will interest you. In fact, according to NeighborhoodScout's research, the Upper Center / Columbia neighborhood is wealthier than 97.5% of the neighborhoods in the United States. Residents here are truly in a unique situation even when compared to other Americans, based on the sheer amount of wealth concentrated here. Even in times of economic downturn, residents of this neighborhood, as a group, suffered less and recovered more quickly. This is indeed a stand-out characteristic of this neighborhood.
Modes of Transportation
If your dream is to be able to ride your bike to work each day, look no further than this unique neighborhood. With 3.1% of residents in the Upper Center / Columbia neighborhood commuting on a bicycle to and from work daily, this neighborhood has more bicycle commuters than 96.0% of all neighborhoods in the U.S., according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis.
Diversity
Did you know that the Upper Center / Columbia neighborhood has more Yugoslav and Portuguese ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 1.1% of this neighborhood's residents have Yugoslav ancestry and 3.2% have Portuguese ancestry.
Upper Center / Columbia is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 18.2% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Chinese at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 99.1% 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 Upper Center / Columbia neighborhood in Castro Valley are wealthy, making it among the 15% highest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 97.5% of the neighborhoods in America. In addition, 7.3% 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 57.9% of America'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 Upper Center / Columbia neighborhood, 58.9% 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 17.5% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations (12.9%), and 10.2% in clerical, assistant, and tech support 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 Upper Center / Columbia neighborhood is English, spoken by 72.6% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Chinese and Spanish.
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 Upper Center / Columbia neighborhood in Castro Valley, CA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Asian (28.2%). There are also a number of people of Italian ancestry (9.6%), and residents who report Irish roots (9.1%), and some of the residents are also of English ancestry (8.9%), along with some German ancestry residents (8.3%), among others. In addition, 18.8% of the residents of this neighborhood were born in another country.
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 Upper Center / Columbia neighborhood spend between 45 minutes and one hour commuting one-way to work (27.9% of working residents), longer and tougher than most commutes in America.
Here most residents (65.9%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In addition, quite a number also take the train to get to work (6.9%) and 5.1% 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.
