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.
Greater South Side median real estate price is $239,023, which is more expensive than 56.7% of the neighborhoods in Iowa and 28.5% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Greater South Side is currently $1,224, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. Rents here are currently lower in price than 51.3% of Iowa neighborhoods.
Greater South Side is a suburban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Des Moines, Iowa.
Greater South Side real estate is primarily made up of medium sized (three or four bedroom) to small (studio to two bedroom) single-family homes and apartment complexes/high-rise apartments. Most of the residential real estate is owner occupied. Many of the residences in the Greater South Side neighborhood are older, well-established, built between 1940 and 1969. A number of residences were also built before 1940.
In Greater South Side, the current vacancy rate is 1.5%, which is a lower rate of vacancies than 89.5% of all neighborhoods in the U.S. This means that the housing supply in Greater South Side 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 Des Moines, the Greater South Side neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
People
Greater South Side has the amazing distinction of housing more same sex couples living together than 98.2% of neighborhoods in the U.S. If you are seeking such a neighborhood, NeighborhoodScout's analysis shows that this is one place that you should consider.
In addition, according to NeighborhoodScout's research, Greater South Side is better suited for first-time home buyers than 88.8% of neighborhoods in the state. Most homes here are priced below the state's median house value, yet maintain comparably good appreciation rates over the last decade relative to other neighborhoods in Iowa. Along with an exclusive multi-metric measure of neighborhood quality developed by NeighborhoodScout that scores high here in this neighborhood, this means that buying into the neighborhood is not only an accessible option but considered a decent first time home buyer choice for building equity in your first home, while being in a quality neighborhood
Diversity
Did you know that the Greater South Side neighborhood has more Scots-Irish and Welsh ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 4.3% of this neighborhood's residents have Scots-Irish ancestry and 2.7% have Welsh ancestry.
Greater South Side is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 8.2% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Italian at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 96.9% 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 Greater South Side neighborhood in Des Moines are middle-income, making it a moderate income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 50.6% of the neighborhoods in America. In addition, 4.2% 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 67.2% of America'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 Greater South Side neighborhood, 41.0% 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 23.0% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (18.5%), and 17.4% 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 Greater South Side neighborhood is English, spoken by 92.3% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Italian and Spanish.
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 Greater South Side neighborhood in Des Moines, IA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (28.7%). There are also a number of people of English ancestry (21.0%), and residents who report Irish roots (13.1%), and some of the residents are also of Italian ancestry (9.3%), along with some Norwegian ancestry residents (6.5%), 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 Greater South Side neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (50.9% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (75.2%) 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 (7.8%) . 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.
