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.
Acorn median real estate price is $1,023,792, which is more expensive than 67.8% of the neighborhoods in California and 92.5% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Acorn is currently $1,585, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. Rents here are currently lower in price than 94.8% of California neighborhoods.
Acorn is a densely urban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Oakland, California.
Acorn 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 small apartment buildings. Most of the residential real estate is renter occupied. Many of the residences in the Acorn neighborhood are established but not old, having been built between 1970 and 1999. A number of residences were also built between 1940 and 1969.
Home and apartment vacancy rates are 7.6% in Acorn. NeighborhoodScout analysis shows that this rate is lower than 50.1% of the neighborhoods in the nation, approximately near the middle range for vacancies.
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 Oakland, the Acorn neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
Modes of Transportation
Our research revealed that more commuters here take the bus to work (17.8% ride the bus) than 98.1% 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, if you like to ride the train to work, this neighborhood may be for you. NeighborhoodScout's research revealed that 16.1% of the Acorn neighborhood's commuters ride the train to and from work each day, which is more than we found in 96.6% of America's neighborhoods.
Finally, if your dream is to be able to ride your bike to work each day, look no further than this unique neighborhood. With 3.3% of residents in the Acorn neighborhood commuting on a bicycle to and from work daily, this neighborhood has more bicycle commuters than 96.2% of all neighborhoods in the U.S., according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis.
Occupations
There are more people living in the Acorn neighborhood employed as sales and service workers (58.8%) than almost any neighborhood in the country. From fast-food service workers to major sales accounts, sales and service workers make up the largest proportion of our national employment picture. But despite that size and importance nationally, this neighborhood still stands out as unique due to the dominance of people living here who work in such occupations.
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 Acorn neighborhood have a highly unusual car ownership. 22.0% 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.
Real Estate
84.0% of the real estate in the Acorn 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 Acorn neighborhood has more Arab and African ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 13.4% of this neighborhood's residents have Arab ancestry and 10.9% have African ancestry.
Acorn is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 8.9% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Arabic at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 99.5% 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 Acorn neighborhood in Oakland are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 94.5% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 45.5% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 92.1% 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 Acorn neighborhood, 41.2% of the working population is employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is executive, management, and professional occupations, with 34.3% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations (13.7%), and 10.8% 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 Acorn neighborhood is English, spoken by 64.0% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Chinese, Arabic, Spanish and Vietnamese.
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 Acorn neighborhood in Oakland, CA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Asian (19.3%). There are also a number of people of Arab ancestry (13.4%), and residents who report Sub-Saharan African roots (10.9%), and some of the residents are also of African ancestry (10.9%), along with some Mexican ancestry residents (7.5%), among others. In addition, 23.8% 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 Acorn neighborhood spend between 45 minutes and one hour commuting one-way to work (40.1% of working residents), longer and tougher than most commutes in America.
Here most residents (42.5%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In addition, quite a number also ride the bus to get to work (17.8%) and 16.1% 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.
