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.
Calumet Heights median real estate price is $311,226, which is more expensive than 52.3% of the neighborhoods in Illinois and 39.5% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Calumet Heights is currently $2,442, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. The average rental cost in this neighborhood is higher than 72.1% of the neighborhoods in Illinois.
Calumet Heights is an urban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Chicago, Illinois.
Calumet Heights 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 owner occupied. Many of the residences in the Calumet Heights neighborhood are older, well-established, built between 1940 and 1969. A number of residences were also built before 1940.
Home and apartment vacancy rates are 9.5% in Calumet Heights. NeighborhoodScout analysis shows that this rate is lower than 40.4% of the neighborhoods in the nation, approximately near the middle range for vacancies.
Notable & Unique Neighborhood Characteristics
The way a neighborhood looks and feels when you walk or drive around it, from its setting, its buildings, and its flavor, can make all the difference. This neighborhood has some really cool things about the way it looks and feels as revealed by NeighborhoodScout's exclusive research. This might include anything from the housing stock to the types of households living here to how people get around.
People
Of note is NeighborhoodScout's research finding that the Calumet Heights neighborhood has some of the lowest rates of children living in poverty of any neighborhood in the United States. In a nation where approximately 1 in 4 children are living in poverty, the Calumet Heights community truly stands out from the rest in this regard.
In addition, for many reasons, Calumet Heights is rated by NeighborhoodScout as one of the top 1.7% of ideal neighborhoods for first-time home buyers in the state of Illinois. Homes here are priced below median housing values in the state, yet the neighborhood has a track record according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive neighborhood home appreciation rates of above average real estate appreciation over the last five years compared to other IL neighborhoods, protecting your investment in your first home, while simultaneously making it less risky for your lender. Not only does this neighborhood stand out for combining price and home value stability or increases, it also is a neighborhood with a high quality resident population according exclusive data, meaning this is likely a good place to buy, live, and enjoy. While many first time home buyers focus purely on low cost and convenient location, which can risk your investment in your first home and put you in a less than desirable neighborhood, this neighborhood is a true standout for a lot of reasons, and definitely worth a look if you are a first time home buyer. In addition to being an excellent choice for first-time home buyers, this neighborhood is also a very good choice for urban sophisticates.
Also, astoundingly, the Calumet Heights neighborhood has one of the highest concentrations of divorcees living here than of any neighborhood, a higher concentration than NeighborhoodScout found in 98.0% of U.S. neighborhoods. This may be because people living here divorce more often than others, or that divorced people move here after they become divorced. If you are divorced, you will be in good company in this particular Chicago neighborhood.
Modes of Transportation
Our research revealed that more commuters here take the bus to work (21.1% ride the bus) than 98.8% 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.
Diversity
Did you know that the Calumet Heights neighborhood has more Jamaican and Sub-Saharan African ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 16.8% of this neighborhood's residents have Jamaican ancestry and 18.9% have Sub-Saharan African ancestry.
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 Calumet Heights neighborhood in Chicago are upper-middle income, making it an above average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 63.0% 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.
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 Calumet Heights neighborhood, 35.1% 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 31.1% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (19.1%), and 14.7% in manufacturing and laborer occupations.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the Calumet Heights neighborhood is English, spoken by 96.6% of households.
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 Calumet Heights neighborhood in Chicago, IL, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Sub-Saharan African (18.9%). There are also a number of people of Jamaican ancestry (16.8%), and residents who report African roots (8.4%).
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 Calumet Heights neighborhood spend between 45 minutes and one hour commuting one-way to work (40.8% of working residents), longer and tougher than most commutes in America.
Here most residents (48.7%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In addition, quite a number also ride the bus to get to work (21.1%) and 5.8% 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.
