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.
ODonnell Heights median real estate price is $160,560, which is less expensive than 93.3% of Maryland neighborhoods and 84.4% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
The average rental price in ODonnell Heights is currently $1,858, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. Rents here are currently lower in price than 82.8% of Maryland neighborhoods.
ODonnell Heights is an urban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Baltimore, Maryland.
ODonnell Heights real estate is primarily made up of small (studio to two bedroom) to medium sized (three or four bedroom) townhomes and small apartment buildings. Most of the residential real estate is renter occupied. Many of the residences in the ODonnell Heights neighborhood are older, well-established, built between 1940 and 1969. A number of residences were also built before 1940.
Vacant apartments or homes are a major fact of life in ODonnell Heights. The current real estate vacancy rate here is 20.9%. This is higher than the rate of vacancies in 87.9% of all U.S. neighborhoods. In addition, most vacant housing here is vacant year round. This can sometimes be the case in neighborhoods dominated by new construction that is not yet occupied. But often neighborhoods with vacancy rates this high are places that can be plagued by a protracted vacancy problem. If you live here, you may find that a number of buildings in your neighborhood are actually empty.
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
Single parenting is hard. But you don't have to tell the ODonnell Heights neighborhood about it; they already know. 65.4% of this neighborhood's households are run by single mothers, which is a higher concentration than NeighborhoodScout found in 100.0% of American neighborhoods. Further NeighborhoodScout research showed strong statistical correlations among high rates of children living in single parent households, and neighborhood crime, particularly violent crime, neighborhood poverty, and, importantly, the percentage of low weight births and rates of infant mortality.
In addition, one of the unique characteristics of the ODonnell Heights neighborhood revealed by analysis is that the per capita income of residents here is lower than that found in 98.4% of the neighborhoods in America.
Also, the ODonnell Heights neighborhood is unique for having just 5.8% of adults here having earned a bachelor's degree. This is a lower rate of college graduates than NeighborhoodScout found in 96.5% of America's neighborhoods.
Real Estate
If you love row houses and attached homes, you will probably really like the ODonnell Heights neighborhood. The ambiance, the charm, of row houses is something special. And in sheer abundance of row houses, this neighborhood truly stands out. The real estate here has a higher proportion of row houses and attached homes than nearly any neighborhood in America. In fact, 89.5% of the residential real estate here is classified as row houses and attached homes.
Length of Commute
Whether walking, biking, riding, or driving, the length of one's commute is an important factor for one's quality of life. The ODonnell Heights neighborhood stands out for its commute length, according to NeighborhoodScout's analysis. Long commutes can be brutal. They take time, money, and energy, leaving less of you for yourself and your family. The residents of the ODonnell Heights neighborhood unfortunately have the distinction of having, on average, a longer commute than most any neighborhood in America. 18.8% of commuters here travel more than one hour just one-way to work. That is more than two hours per day. This percentage with two-hour + round-trip commutes is higher than NeighborhoodScout found in 99.4% of all neighborhoods in America.
Modes of Transportation
Our research shows that more people carpool to work here in the ODonnell Heights (32.5%) than in 99.2% of the neighborhoods in America.
Also, more people ride the bus in this neighborhood each day to get to work than 98.4% of U.S. neighborhoods.
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 ODonnell Heights neighborhood have a highly unusual car ownership. 45.6% of the households in this neighborhood don't own a car at all. This is more carless households than NeighborhoodScout found in 98.5% of U.S. neighborhoods.
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 ODonnell Heights neighborhood in Baltimore are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 98.4% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 51.4% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 94.5% 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 ODonnell Heights neighborhood, 52.9% 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 24.1% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in executive, management, and professional occupations (17.2%), and 5.8% 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 ODonnell Heights neighborhood is English, spoken by 88.1% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish 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 ODonnell Heights neighborhood in Baltimore, MD, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Polish (6.3%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (5.1%), and residents who report German roots (4.9%), and some of the residents are also of South American ancestry (3.8%), along with some Mexican ancestry residents (1.8%), 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 ODonnell Heights neighborhood spend under 15 minutes commuting one-way to work (28.8% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America. However, there is also a significant group of residents (18.8%) who commute over an hour in each direction.
Here most residents (45.6%) 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 (32.5%) and 18.8% 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.
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.
