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.
University Heights median real estate price is $816,880, which is more expensive than 75.7% of the neighborhoods in New Jersey and 84.8% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in University Heights is currently $1,648, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. Rents here are currently lower in price than 97.3% of New Jersey neighborhoods.
University Heights is a densely urban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Newark, New Jersey.
University Heights 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 University Heights neighborhood are established but not old, having been built between 1970 and 1999. A number of residences were also built between 1940 and 1969.
In University Heights, the current vacancy rate is 2.4%, which is a lower rate of vacancies than 83.3% of all neighborhoods in the U.S. This means that the housing supply in University Heights 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 Newark, the University Heights neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
People
One of the unique characteristics of the University Heights neighborhood revealed by analysis is that the per capita income of residents here is lower than that found in 97.2% of the neighborhoods in America. The University Heights neighborhood also has a greater percentage of children living in poverty (60.5%) than found in 97.1% of all U.S. neighborhoods. Children living in poverty is one of the challenges facing America, and the world, and in this neighborhood in particular, the problem can be considered acute.
Real Estate
88.4% of the real estate in the University Heights neighborhood is occupied by renters, which is nearly the highest rate of renter occupancy of any neighborhood in America.
Car Ownership
We Americans love our cars. Not only are they a necessity for most Americans due to the shape of our neighborhoods and the distances between where we live, work, shop, and go to school, but we also fancy them. As a result, most households in America have one, two, or three cars. But NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis shows that the University Heights neighborhood has a highly unusual pattern of car ownership. 24.2% of the households in this neighborhood don't own a car at all. This is more carless households than NeighborhoodScout found in 96.2% of U.S. neighborhoods.
Modes of Transportation
More people ride the bus in this neighborhood each day to get to work than 96.2% of U.S. neighborhoods.
Diversity
Did you know that the University Heights neighborhood has more Dominican and Sub-Saharan African ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 19.3% of this neighborhood's residents have Dominican ancestry and 22.3% have Sub-Saharan African ancestry.
University Heights is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 9.3% 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 99.0% 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 University Heights neighborhood in Newark are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 97.2% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 60.5% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 97.1% of U.S. neighborhoods.
What we choose to do for a living reflects who we are. Each neighborhood has a different mix of occupations represented, and together these tell you about the neighborhood and help you understand if this neighborhood may fit your lifestyle.
In the University Heights neighborhood, 45.8% of the working population is employed in executive, management, and professional occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations, with 27.2% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (22.4%), and 7.3% in government jobs, whether they are in local, state, or federal positions.
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 University Heights neighborhood is English, spoken by 66.7% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish, French, Langs. of India and African languages.
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 University Heights neighborhood in Newark, NJ, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Sub-Saharan African (22.3%). There are also a number of people of Dominican ancestry (19.3%), and residents who report African roots (8.1%), and some of the residents are also of Asian ancestry (5.5%). In addition, 20.5% 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 University Heights neighborhood spend between 30 and 45 minutes commuting one-way to work (46.1% of working residents), which is at or a bit above the average length of a commute across all U.S. neighborhoods.
Here most residents (64.9%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In addition, quite a number also ride the bus to get to work (11.9%) and 7.0% 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.
