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.
Penns Neck median real estate price is $789,801, which is more expensive than 67.8% of the neighborhoods in New Jersey and 79.9% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Penns Neck is currently $4,396, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. The average rental cost in this neighborhood is higher than 88.1% of the neighborhoods in New Jersey.
Penns Neck is a rural neighborhood (based on population density) located in Princeton, New Jersey.
Penns Neck 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 occupied by a mixture of owners and renters. Many of the residences in the Penns Neck 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.
Real estate vacancies in Penns Neck are 3.9%, which is lower than one will find in 72.6% of American neighborhoods. Demand for real estate in Penns Neck is above average for the U.S., and may signal some demand for either price increases or new construction of residential product for this neighborhood.
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 Princeton, the Penns Neck neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
People
Of note is NeighborhoodScout's research finding that the Penns Neck 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 Penns Neck community truly stands out from the rest in this regard.
In addition, the rate of college educated adults in the Penns Neck neighborhood is a unique characteristic of the neighborhood. 84.8% of adults here have received at least a 4-year bachelor's degree, compared to the average neighborhood in America, which has 35.0% of the adults with a bachelor's degree. The rate here is higher than NeighborhoodScout found in 98.9% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
Occupations
Executives, managers and professionals make up 76.9% of the workforce in the Penns Neck neighborhood which, according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis, is a higher proportion of such high-level people than is found in 98.1% of the neighborhoods in America. For this reason, this neighborhood really stands out as unique.
Modes of Transportation
In the Penns Neck neighborhood, many people's commute means walking from the bedroom to the home office. NeighborhoodScout's analysis found that 34.8% of residents worked from home. This may not seem like a large number, but Scout's research shows that this is a higher percentage of people working from home than 97.5% of the neighborhoods in America. Often people who work from home are engaged in the creative or technological economy, such as is found in areas around Boston, and in Silicon Valley. Other times, people may be engaged in other businesses like trading stocks from home, or running a small beauty salon.
Also, if you like to ride the train to work, this neighborhood may be for you. NeighborhoodScout's research revealed that 13.7% of the Penns Neck neighborhood's commuters ride the train to and from work each day, which is more than we found in 96.4% of America's neighborhoods.
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 Penns Neck 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 Penns Neck neighborhood unfortunately have the distinction of having, on average, a longer commute than most any neighborhood in America. 11.3% 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 96.8% of all neighborhoods in America.
Diversity
Did you know that the Penns Neck neighborhood has more Asian and Yugoslav ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 54.8% of this neighborhood's residents have Asian ancestry and 0.8% have Yugoslav ancestry.
Penns Neck is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 18.1% 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 99.8% of the neighborhoods in America.
Migration / Stability
Some neighborhoods have more internal cohesiveness than others. While other neighborhoods feel like a collection of strangers who just happen to live near each other. Sometimes this comes down to not only the personalities of the people in a place, but how long people have been together in that neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research has revealed some interesting things about the rootedness of people in the Penns Neck neighborhood. What is interesting to note, is that the Penns Neck neighborhood has a greater percentage of residents born in another country (49.4%) than are found in 97.4% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
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 Penns Neck neighborhood in Princeton 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 92.2% 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.
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 Penns Neck neighborhood, 76.9% 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 8.9% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations (7.7%), and 6.5% 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 Penns Neck neighborhood is English, spoken by 34.1% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Langs. of India, Spanish, Chinese and French.
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 Penns Neck neighborhood in Princeton, NJ, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Asian (54.8%). There are also a number of people of Italian ancestry (7.1%), and residents who report Puerto Rican roots (5.4%), and some of the residents are also of English ancestry (4.5%), along with some Irish ancestry residents (3.7%), among others. In addition, 49.4% 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 Penns Neck neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (41.3% 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 (11.3%) who commute over an hour in each direction.
Here most residents (45.6%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In addition, quite a number also take the train to get to work (13.7%) and 5.7% 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.
