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.
West Side median real estate price is $263,429, which is less expensive than 93.2% of New Jersey neighborhoods and 66.9% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
The average rental price in West Side is currently $2,683, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. Rents here are currently lower in price than 75.1% of New Jersey neighborhoods.
West Side is a densely urban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Newark, New Jersey.
West Side real estate is primarily made up of medium sized (three or four bedroom) to small (studio to two bedroom) townhomes and small apartment buildings. Most of the residential real estate is occupied by a mixture of owners and renters. Many of the residences in the West Side neighborhood are established but not old, having been built between 1970 and 1999. A number of residences were also built between 2000 and the present.
Vacant apartments or homes are a major fact of life in West Side. The current real estate vacancy rate here is 20.0%. This is higher than the rate of vacancies in 86.8% 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
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 West Side 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 (16.6% ride the bus) than 97.8% 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, in the West Side neighborhood, 11.0% of people ride the train to work each day. This is a very high percentage compared to most places. In fact, NeighborhoodScout's analysis reveals that this is a higher level of train ridership than in 95.4% of the neighborhoods in America.
Real Estate
If you love row houses and attached homes, you will probably really like the West Side 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, 35.2% of the residential real estate here is classified as row houses and attached homes.
Car Ownership
American households most often have a car, and regularly they have two or three. But households in the West Side neighborhood buck this trend. 28.2% of the households in this neighborhood don't own a car at all. This is more carless households than NeighborhoodScout found in 96.9% of U.S. neighborhoods.
People
The West Side neighborhood has a greater percentage of children living in poverty (55.5%) than found in 95.8% 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.
Diversity
Did you know that the West Side neighborhood has more Sub-Saharan African and Dominican ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 28.4% of this neighborhood's residents have Sub-Saharan African ancestry and 12.6% have Dominican ancestry.
West Side is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 12.7% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak African languages at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 99.8% 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 West Side 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 94.6% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 55.5% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 95.8% 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 West Side neighborhood, 31.7% 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 manufacturing and laborer occupations, with 27.5% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in executive, management, and professional occupations (24.8%), and 16.0% 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 West Side neighborhood is English, spoken by 63.9% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish, African languages and French.
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 West Side neighborhood in Newark, NJ, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Sub-Saharan African (28.4%). There are also a number of people of Dominican ancestry (12.6%), and residents who report Mexican roots (6.0%), and some of the residents are also of African ancestry (4.0%), along with some Puerto Rican ancestry residents (2.9%), among others. In addition, 36.2% 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 West Side neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (36.9% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (53.7%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In addition, quite a number also ride the bus to get to work (16.6%) and 11.0% 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.
