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.
Fresh Meadows Southwest median real estate price is $952,807, which is more expensive than 70.0% of the neighborhoods in New York and 88.6% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Fresh Meadows Southwest is currently $3,429, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. The average rental cost in this neighborhood is higher than 60.7% of the neighborhoods in New York.
Fresh Meadows Southwest is a densely urban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Queens, New York.
Fresh Meadows Southwest 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 single-family homes. Most of the residential real estate is occupied by a mixture of owners and renters. Many of the residences in the Fresh Meadows Southwest neighborhood are older, well-established, built between 1940 and 1969. A number of residences were also built between 1970 and 1999.
Fresh Meadows Southwest has a 12.6% vacancy rate, which is well above average compared to other U.S. neighborhoods (higher than 71.2% of American neighborhoods). Most vacant housing here is vacant year round. This could either signal that there is a weak demand for real estate in the neighborhood or that large amount of new housing has been built and not yet occupied. Either way, if you live here, you may find many of the homes or apartments are 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 Queens, the Fresh Meadows Southwest 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 (24.2% ride the bus) than 99.2% 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 14.6% of the Fresh Meadows Southwest neighborhood's commuters ride the train to and from work each day, which is more than we found in 96.4% of America's neighborhoods.
Real Estate
If you like crowded places, then you will probably enjoy the the Fresh Meadows Southwest neighborhood. According to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive data analysis, this neighborhood is more densely populated than 96.7% of neighborhoods in the U.S., with 28,421 people per square mile living here.
Diversity
Did you know that the Fresh Meadows Southwest neighborhood has more South American and Russian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 14.1% of this neighborhood's residents have South American ancestry and 6.3% have Russian ancestry.
Fresh Meadows Southwest is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 16.8% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Chinese at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 99.0% of the neighborhoods in America.
Migration / Stability
The freedom of moving to new places versus the comfort of home. How much and how often people move not only can create diverse and worldly neighborhoods, but simultaneously it can produce a loss of intimacy with one's surroundings and a lack of connectedness to one's neighbors. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive research has identified this neighborhood as unique with regard to the transience of its populace. What is interesting to note, is that the Fresh Meadows Southwest neighborhood has a greater percentage of residents born in another country (52.6%) than are found in 98.2% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
The Neighbors
How wealthy a neighborhood is, from very wealthy, to middle income, to low income is very formative with regard to the personality and character of a neighborhood. Equally important is the rate of people, particularly children, who live below the federal poverty line. In some wealthy gated communities, the areas immediately surrounding can have high rates of childhood poverty, which indicates other social issues. NeighborhoodScout's analysis reveals both aspects of income and poverty for this neighborhood.
The neighbors in the Fresh Meadows Southwest neighborhood in Queens are upper-middle income, making it an above average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 60.1% of the neighborhoods in America. With 13.2% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 56.5% 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 Fresh Meadows Southwest neighborhood, 30.3% 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 28.5% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations (24.8%), and 16.4% 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 Fresh Meadows Southwest neighborhood is English, spoken by 31.8% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish, Chinese, Tagalog (the first language of the Philippine region) and Russian.
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 Fresh Meadows Southwest neighborhood in Queens, NY, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Asian (37.2%). There are also a number of people of South American ancestry (14.1%), and residents who report Russian roots (6.3%), and some of the residents are also of Puerto Rican ancestry (5.0%), along with some Mexican ancestry residents (4.3%), among others. In addition, 52.6% of the residents of this neighborhood were born in another country.
Getting to Work
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 Fresh Meadows Southwest neighborhood spend between 45 minutes and one hour commuting one-way to work (32.9% of working residents), longer and tougher than most commutes in America.
Here most residents (42.0%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In addition, quite a number also ride the bus to get to work (24.2%) and 14.6% 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.
