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.
Harbor Springs / Columbia Station median real estate price is $400,920, which is more expensive than 68.1% of the neighborhoods in Illinois and 53.2% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Harbor Springs / Columbia Station is currently $4,098, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. The average rental cost in this neighborhood is higher than 97.6% of the neighborhoods in Illinois.
Harbor Springs / Columbia Station is an urban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Aurora, Illinois.
Harbor Springs / Columbia Station real estate is primarily made up of medium sized (three or four bedroom) to large (four, five or more bedroom) single-family homes and townhomes. Most of the residential real estate is owner occupied. Many of the residences in the Harbor Springs / Columbia Station neighborhood are newer, built in 2000 or more recently. A number of residences were also built between 1970 and 1999.
In Harbor Springs / Columbia Station, the current vacancy rate is 0.0%, which is a lower rate of vacancies than 100.0% of all neighborhoods in the U.S. This means that the housing supply in Harbor Springs / Columbia Station 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 Aurora, the Harbor Springs / Columbia Station neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
Real Estate
With a real estate vacancy rate of only 0.0%, the Harbor Springs / Columbia Station neighborhood has a lower vacancy rate than 100.0% of U.S. neighborhoods, a very elite group. Such a low vacancy rate may indicate very strong real estate demand in the neighborhood combined with some impediments to increasing supply, such as zoning or existing density of development, among other potential reasons.
People
In a nation where 1 out of every 4 children lives in poverty, the Harbor Springs / Columbia Station neighborhood stands out as being ranked among the lowest 0.0% of neighborhoods affected by this global issue.
In addition, the Harbor Springs / Columbia Station neighborhood is considered a solid choice for executive lifestyles. NeighborhoodScout's analysis ranks it as better than 94.2% of Illinois neighborhoods for executive living, based on the wealthy, educated professionals, executives, and managers who choose to reside here, the spacious homes that are prominent features of the real estate in the neighborhood, and the high real estate appreciation rates found here relative to other neighborhoods in the state. In addition to being an excellent choice for highly educated executives, this neighborhood is also a very good choice for families with school-aged children, college students and urban sophisticates.
Length of Commute
Whether walking, biking, riding, or driving, the length of one's commute is an important factor for one's quality of life. The Harbor Springs / Columbia Station neighborhood stands out for its commute length, according to NeighborhoodScout's analysis. Long commutes can be brutal. They take time, money, and energy, leaving less of you for yourself and your family. The residents of the Harbor Springs / Columbia Station neighborhood unfortunately have the distinction of having, on average, a longer commute than most any neighborhood in America. 10.4% of commuters here travel more than one hour just one-way to work. That is more than two hours per day. This percentage with two-hour + round-trip commutes is higher than NeighborhoodScout found in 95.8% of all neighborhoods in America.
Diversity
Did you know that the Harbor Springs / Columbia Station neighborhood has more Romanian and Lithuanian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 1.1% of this neighborhood's residents have Romanian ancestry and 1.2% have Lithuanian ancestry.
Harbor Springs / Columbia Station is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 5.4% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Langs. of India at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 97.6% 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 Harbor Springs / Columbia Station neighborhood in Aurora are wealthy, making it among the 15% highest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 92.3% of the neighborhoods in America. In addition, 0.0% 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 100.0% 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 Harbor Springs / Columbia Station neighborhood, 56.7% 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 17.4% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (14.2%), and 11.6% 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 Harbor Springs / Columbia Station neighborhood is English, spoken by 64.5% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish, Langs. of India and Tagalog (the first language of the Philippine region).
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 Harbor Springs / Columbia Station neighborhood in Aurora, IL, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Asian (24.2%). There are also a number of people of German ancestry (18.7%), and residents who report Mexican roots (13.2%), and some of the residents are also of Irish ancestry (12.1%), along with some Italian ancestry residents (11.3%), among others. In addition, 25.0% 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 Harbor Springs / Columbia Station neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (30.2% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans. However, there is also a significant group of residents (10.4%) who commute over an hour in each direction.
Here most residents (60.9%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In addition, quite a number also take the train to get to work (8.6%) and 5.4% 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.
