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.
Downtown median real estate price is $211,194, which is less expensive than 85.5% of New York neighborhoods and 78.0% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
The average rental price in Downtown is currently $1,929, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. Rents here are currently lower in price than 73.1% of New York neighborhoods.
Downtown is an urban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Syracuse, New York.
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 small apartment buildings. Most of the residential real estate is renter occupied. Many of the residences in the Downtown neighborhood are established but not old, having been built between 1970 and 1999. A number of residences were also built before 1940.
Real estate vacancies in Downtown are 5.6%, which is lower than one will find in 62.6% of American neighborhoods. Demand for real estate in Downtown 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 Syracuse, the Downtown neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
People
In a nation where 1 out of every 4 children lives in poverty, the Downtown neighborhood stands out as being ranked among the lowest 0.0% of neighborhoods affected by this global issue.
In addition, of particular note, 8.9% of the people in the Downtown neighborhood currently reside in a correction facility, held due to punishment for a crime.
Real Estate
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 97.8% 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.
In addition, 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. 93.6% 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 98.7% of all neighborhoods in America.
Furthermore, 97.9% of the real estate in the Downtown neighborhood is occupied by renters, which is nearly the highest rate of renter occupancy of any neighborhood in America.
Modes of Transportation
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 31.8% of residents here. This is a higher proportion of walking commuters than we found in 99.2% of American neighborhoods. Get ready to put on your walking shoes if you move here!
Car Ownership
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. 24.6% of the households in this neighborhood don't own a car at all. This is more carless households than NeighborhoodScout found in 96.3% of U.S. neighborhoods.
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 Downtown neighborhood. In the Downtown neighborhood, a greater proportion of the residents living here today did not live here five years ago than is found in 98.8% of U.S. Neighborhoods. This neighborhood, more than almost any other in America, has new residents from other areas.
Diversity
Did you know that the Downtown neighborhood has more Czechoslovakian and Haitian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 0.6% of this neighborhood's residents have Czechoslovakian ancestry and 2.7% have Haitian ancestry.
Downtown is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 0.8% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Urdu, which is the national language of Pakistan, at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 96.7% of the neighborhoods in America.
The Neighbors
How wealthy a neighborhood is, from very wealthy, to middle income, to low income is very formative with regard to the personality and character of a neighborhood. Equally important is the rate of people, particularly children, who live below the federal poverty line. In some wealthy gated communities, the areas immediately surrounding can have high rates of childhood poverty, which indicates other social issues. NeighborhoodScout's analysis reveals both aspects of income and poverty for this neighborhood.
The neighbors in the Downtown neighborhood in Syracuse are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 71.3% 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, 68.9% 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 13.4% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (11.9%), and 5.8% 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 Downtown neighborhood is English, spoken by 80.7% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish, Polish and Chinese.
Ethnicity / Ancestry
Boston's Beacon Hill blue-blood streets, Brooklyn's Orthodox Jewish enclaves, Los Angeles' Persian neighborhoods. Each has its own culture derived primarily from the ancestries and culture of the residents who call these neighborhoods home. Likewise, each neighborhood in America has its own culture – some more unique than others – based on lifestyle, occupations, the types of households – and importantly – on the ethnicities and ancestries of the people who live in the neighborhood. Understanding where people came from, who their grandparents or great-grandparents were, can help you understand how a neighborhood is today.
In the Downtown neighborhood in Syracuse, NY, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Italian (13.6%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (13.3%), and residents who report Asian roots (11.1%), and some of the residents are also of German ancestry (8.5%), along with some Puerto Rican ancestry residents (8.3%), among others. In addition, 13.7% 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 Downtown neighborhood spend under 15 minutes commuting one-way to work (55.0% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.
Here most residents (35.9%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In addition, quite a number also hop out the door and walk to work to get to work (31.8%) and 10.3% of residents also ride the bus 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.
