Downtown median real estate price is $880,615, which is more expensive than 92.0% of the neighborhoods in North Carolina and 82.8% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Downtown is currently $777, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. Rents here are currently lower in price than 99.6% of North Carolina neighborhoods.
Downtown is a suburban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Asheville, North Carolina.
Downtown 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 renter occupied. Many of the residences in the Downtown neighborhood are relatively historic, built no later than 1939, and in some cases, quite a bit earlier. A number of residences were also built between 2000 and the present.
Vacant apartments or homes are a major fact of life in Downtown. The current real estate vacancy rate here is 44.8%. This is higher than the rate of vacancies in 98.3% 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.
When you see a neighborhood for the first time, the most important thing is often the way it looks, like its homes and its setting. Some places look the same, but they only reveal their true character after living in them for a while because they contain a unique mix of occupational or cultural groups. This neighborhood is very unique in some important ways, according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive exploration and analysis.
The Downtown neighborhood stands out for having an average per capita income lower than 99.4% of the neighborhoods in the United States. Also of note is NeighborhoodScout's research finding that the Downtown 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 Downtown community truly stands out from the rest in this regard.
In addition, an interesting characteristic about the Downtown neighborhood is that there are more incarcerated people living here than 99.2% of neighborhoods in the U.S. The United States has the highest rate of incarceration in the world, currently with 1 out of every 100 adults in the country are incarcerated as a punishment for crimes committed. The extremely high incarceration rate of this neighborhood could mean that a prison, juvenile detention facility or other correctional facility occupies a large proportion of the neighborhood, or contains a large portion of the neighborhood's population.
In the Downtown neighborhood, walking to work is a real option for many. In fact, NeighborhoodScout's exclusive research reveals walking to and from work is the chosen way to commute for 25.8% of residents here. This is a higher proportion of walking commuters than we found in 98.8% of American neighborhoods. Get ready to put on your walking shoes if you move here!
Also, a unique way of commuting is simply not to. And in the Downtown neighborhood, analysis shows that 30.8% of the residents work from home, avoiding a commute altogether. This may not seem like a large number, but it is a higher proportion of people working from home than is found in 95.2% of the neighborhoods in the United States. One thing NeighborhoodScout's research reveals is that the wealthier and/or more isolated the neighborhood, the greater the proportion of residents who choose to work from home.
One of the really unique and interesting things about the look and setting of the Downtown neighborhood is that it is almost entirely dominated by large apartment buildings, such as apartment complexes or high-rise apartments. 91.6% of the residential real estate here is classified as such. This puts this neighborhood on the map as having a higher proportion of large apartment buildings than 98.4% of all neighborhoods in America.
In addition, renter-occupied real estate is dominant in the Downtown neighborhood. The percentage of rental real estate here, according to exclusive NeighborhoodScout analysis, is 84.8%, which is higher than 95.3% of the neighborhoods in America. If you were to buy and live in the property you bought here, you would be almost alone in doing so. Vacant homes and apartments are a significant characteristic of this neighborhood. In fact, with 44.8% of the residential real estate vacant, the Downtown neighborhood claims the distinction of having a higher vacancy rate than 98.3% of the neighborhoods in America. This can either be because much of the property is seasonally occupied, like in many vacation areas, or that much of the real estate is more permanently abandoned.
Furthermore, the Downtown neighborhood is very unique in that it has one of the highest proportions of one, two, or no bedroom real estate of any neighborhood in America. Most neighborhoods have a mixture of home or apartment sizes from small to large, but here the concentration of studios and other small living spaces is at near-record heights. With 92.2% of the real estate here of this small size, this most assuredly is a notable feature that makes this neighborhood unique, along with just a handful of other neighborhoods in the U.S. that share this characteristic.
It used to be that most Americans lived on the farm, or otherwise made their living from the land, the forests, or the sea. With global trade and an economy increasingly based on providing services to one another, fewer people farm, fish or harvest timber now than at any time in American history. But according to NeighborhoodScout's leading analysis, the Downtown neighborhood stands apart from most American neighborhood due to the proportion of its residents still working in these fields. With 7.3% of the workforce so employed, this neighborhood has a greater concentration of such workers than 98.4% of U.S. neighborhoods.
Furthermore, there are more people living in the Downtown neighborhood employed as sales and service workers (60.8%) than almost any neighborhood in the country. From fast-food service workers to major sales accounts, sales and service workers make up the largest proportion of our national employment picture. But despite that size and importance nationally, this neighborhood still stands out as unique due to the dominance of people living here who work in such occupations.
Regardless of the means by which residents commute, this neighborhood has a length of commute that is notable. Residents of the Downtown neighborhood have the pleasure of having one of the shortest commutes to work of any neighborhood in America. 68.7% of the residents have a commute time from home to work (one way) of less than fifteen minutes. This is a higher proportion of residents enjoying a short trip to work than NeighborhoodScout found in 98.3% of U.S. neighborhoods. Less time commuting means more time for other things in life.
We Americans love our cars. Not only are they a necessity for most Americans due to the shape of our neighborhoods and the distances between where we live, work, shop, and go to school, but we also fancy them. As a result, most households in America have one, two, or three cars. But NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis shows that the Downtown neighborhood has a highly unusual pattern of car ownership. 25.8% of the households in this neighborhood don't own a car at all. This is more carless households than NeighborhoodScout found in 96.5% of U.S. neighborhoods.
Did you know that the Downtown neighborhood has more Scottish and Scots-Irish ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 9.2% of this neighborhood's residents have Scottish ancestry and 3.4% have Scots-Irish ancestry.
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. In the Downtown neighborhood, a greater proportion of the residents living here today did not live here five years ago than is found in 97.6% of U.S. Neighborhoods. This neighborhood, more than almost any other in America, has new residents from other areas.
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 Downtown neighborhood in Asheville are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 99.4% of U.S. neighborhoods. 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.
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 Downtown neighborhood, 49.0% 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 39.2% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in farming, forestry, or commercial fishing (7.3%), and 4.1% in clerical, assistant, and tech support 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 Downtown neighborhood is English, spoken by 95.5% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Italian and Spanish.
Ethnicity / Ancestry
Culture is the shared learned behavior of peoples. Undeniably, different ethnicities and ancestries have different cultural traditions, and as a result, neighborhoods with concentrations of residents of one or another ethnicities or ancestries will express those cultures. It is what makes the North End in Boston so fun to visit for the Italian restaurants, bakeries, culture, and charm, and similarly, why people enjoy visiting Chinatown in San Francisco.
In the Downtown neighborhood in Asheville, NC, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as English (19.4%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (12.7%), and residents who report Scottish roots (9.2%), and some of the residents are also of German ancestry (8.8%), along with some Scots-Irish ancestry residents (3.4%), among others.
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 Downtown neighborhood spend under 15 minutes commuting one-way to work (68.7% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.
Here most residents (25.8%) hop out the door and walk to work to get to work. In addition, quite a number also drive alone in a private automobile to get to work (25.4%) and 17.5% of residents also carpool with coworkers, friends, or neighbors for their daily commute. This is a special neighborhood for the number of people who walk to work. Combining exercise, low cost, and reduced pollution, plus the chance to see your neighbors, walking to work is fairly uncommon in America but likely to increase as people try to reduce their dependence on automobiles, and this neighborhood offers that opportunity today.
