Dorchester Center South median real estate price is $699,637, which is more expensive than 50.6% of the neighborhoods in Massachusetts and 78.6% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Dorchester Center South is currently $4,088, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. The average rental cost in this neighborhood is higher than 73.1% of the neighborhoods in Massachusetts.
Dorchester Center South is a densely urban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Boston, Massachusetts.
Dorchester Center South real estate is primarily made up of medium sized (three or four bedroom) to small (studio to two bedroom) small apartment buildings and townhomes. Most of the residential real estate is occupied by a mixture of owners and renters. Many of the residences in the Dorchester Center South 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 1970 and 1999.
Home and apartment vacancy rates are 7.4% in Dorchester Center South. NeighborhoodScout analysis shows that this rate is lower than 51.7% of the neighborhoods in the nation, approximately near the middle range for vacancies.
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 Boston, the Dorchester Center South neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
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 Dorchester Center South 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, 60.8% of the real estate here are small 2, 3, or 4 unit apartment buildings, which is a higher proportion than found in 99.2% 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 Dorchester Center South neighborhood is among the top 5% of American neighborhoods in terms of walkability.
Furthermore, do you watch 'This Old House' on Public Television? Do you love the idea of fixing up a Colonial or Victorian era home, complete with the charm of yesteryear? Do you like to stroll or drive streets lined with gracious older residences? If you found yourself nodding yes to any of these questions, you are going to be interested in this unique neighborhood. The Dorchester Center South neighborhood stands out on a national scale for the sheer concentration of historic residences it contains: 64.7% of the residential real estate here was built from 1939 or earlier, some much earlier. This is a greater concentration of historic homes than 97.6% of the neighborhoods in the United States.
Whether by choice, divorce, or unplanned pregnancy, single moms may have the toughest job in the book. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that the Dorchester Center South neighborhood has more single mother households than 96.8% of the neighborhoods in the U.S. Often high concentrations of single mother homes can be a strong indicator of family and social issues such as poverty, high rates of school dropouts, crime, and other societal problems.
Did you know that the Dorchester Center South neighborhood has more Haitian and Jamaican ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 19.3% of this neighborhood's residents have Haitian ancestry and 9.9% have Jamaican ancestry.
Dorchester Center South is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 17.1% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak French at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 99.6% of the neighborhoods in America.
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 Dorchester Center South neighborhood in Boston are upper-middle income, making it an above average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 63.8% of the neighborhoods in America. With 20.7% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 69.8% 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 Dorchester Center South neighborhood, 29.4% 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 clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations, with 24.8% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in executive, management, and professional occupations (24.0%), and 21.8% in manufacturing and laborer occupations.
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 Dorchester Center South neighborhood is English, spoken by 70.0% of households. Other important languages spoken here include French, Spanish, African languages and Portuguese.
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 Dorchester Center South neighborhood in Boston, MA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Haitian (19.3%). There are also a number of people of Sub-Saharan African ancestry (15.4%), and residents who report Jamaican roots (9.9%), and some of the residents are also of Dominican ancestry (3.0%), along with some Irish ancestry residents (2.5%), among others. In addition, 30.6% of the residents of this neighborhood were born in another country.
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 Dorchester Center South neighborhood spend between 30 and 45 minutes commuting one-way to work (32.4% of working residents), which is at or a bit above the average length of a commute across all U.S. neighborhoods.
Here most residents (57.4%) 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 (10.6%) and 10.3% of residents also ride the bus 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.