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.
Apperson - Dickerson / Bennett Hill - Progress median real estate price is $668,446, which is more expensive than 73.7% of the neighborhoods in Virginia and 77.1% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Apperson - Dickerson / Bennett Hill - Progress is currently $1,951, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. Rents here are currently lower in price than 68.7% of Virginia neighborhoods.
Apperson - Dickerson / Bennett Hill - Progress is a rural neighborhood (based on population density) located in Blacksburg, Virginia.
Apperson - Dickerson / Bennett Hill - Progress real estate is primarily made up of medium sized (three or four bedroom) to large (four, five or more bedroom) single-family homes 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 Apperson - Dickerson / Bennett Hill - Progress 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 Apperson - Dickerson / Bennett Hill - Progress. The current real estate vacancy rate here is 19.8%. This is higher than the rate of vacancies in 87.4% 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 Blacksburg, the Apperson - Dickerson / Bennett Hill - Progress neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
People
NeighborhoodScout's analysis shows that the Apperson - Dickerson / Bennett Hill - Progress neighborhood has a greater concentration of residents currently enrolled in college than 98.4% of the neighborhoods in the U.S. With 27.3% of the population here attending college, this is very much a college-focused neighborhood.
In addition, with a nice mix of college students, safety from crime, and decent walkability, the Apperson - Dickerson / Bennett Hill - Progress neighborhood rates highly as a college student friendly place to live, and one that college students and their parents may want to consider. NeighborhoodScout's analysis shows that it rates more highly for a good place for college students to live than 88.6% of the neighborhoods in VA. This often also means that the area has certain amenities and services geared towards college students, from undergraduates to graduate students.
Modes of Transportation
If your dream is to be able to ride your bike to work each day, look no further than this unique neighborhood. With 3.9% of residents in the Apperson - Dickerson / Bennett Hill - Progress neighborhood commuting on a bicycle to and from work daily, this neighborhood has more bicycle commuters than 97.2% of all neighborhoods in the U.S., according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis.
Occupations
Executives, managers and professionals make up 70.3% of the workforce in the Apperson - Dickerson / Bennett Hill - Progress neighborhood which, according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis, is a higher proportion of such high-level people than is found in 95.2% of the neighborhoods in America. For this reason, this neighborhood really stands out as unique.
Diversity
Did you know that the Apperson - Dickerson / Bennett Hill - Progress neighborhood has more Croatian and Romanian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 1.2% of this neighborhood's residents have Croatian ancestry and 1.0% have Romanian ancestry.
Apperson - Dickerson / Bennett Hill - Progress is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 2.1% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Persian at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 99.1% 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 Apperson - Dickerson / Bennett Hill - Progress neighborhood in Blacksburg are middle-income, making it a moderate income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 55.0% of the neighborhoods in America. In addition, 5.8% of the children seventeen and under living in this neighborhood are living below the federal poverty line, which is a lower rate of childhood poverty than is found in 61.7% of America's neighborhoods.
A neighborhood is far different if it is dominated by enlisted military personnel rather than people who earn their living by farming. It is also different if most of the neighbors are clerical support or managers. What is wonderful is the sheer diversity of neighborhoods, allowing you to find the type that fits your lifestyle and aspirations.
In the Apperson - Dickerson / Bennett Hill - Progress neighborhood, 70.3% of the working population is employed in executive, management, and professional occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants, with 14.0% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (9.8%), and 5.6% in manufacturing and laborer 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 Apperson - Dickerson / Bennett Hill - Progress neighborhood is English, spoken by 86.2% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Chinese, Arabic and Persian.
Ethnicity / Ancestry
Boston's Beacon Hill blue-blood streets, Brooklyn's Orthodox Jewish enclaves, Los Angeles' Persian neighborhoods. Each has its own culture derived primarily from the ancestries and culture of the residents who call these neighborhoods home. Likewise, each neighborhood in America has its own culture – some more unique than others – based on lifestyle, occupations, the types of households – and importantly – on the ethnicities and ancestries of the people who live in the neighborhood. Understanding where people came from, who their grandparents or great-grandparents were, can help you understand how a neighborhood is today.
In the Apperson - Dickerson / Bennett Hill - Progress neighborhood in Blacksburg, VA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (18.6%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (13.6%), and residents who report English roots (12.3%), and some of the residents are also of Asian ancestry (4.8%), along with some Italian ancestry residents (3.9%), among others. In addition, 15.5% 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 Apperson - Dickerson / Bennett Hill - Progress neighborhood spend under 15 minutes commuting one-way to work (56.6% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.
Here most residents (60.9%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In addition, quite a number also hop out the door and walk to work to get to work (9.0%) and 6.9% of residents also carpool with coworkers, friends, or neighbors 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.
