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.
Sacred Heart median real estate price is $154,799, which is less expensive than 82.5% of Pennsylvania neighborhoods and 87.0% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
The average rental price in Sacred Heart is currently $1,852, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. Rents here are currently lower in price than 43.4% of Pennsylvania neighborhoods.
Sacred Heart is a densely urban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Allentown, Pennsylvania.
Sacred Heart real estate is primarily made up of small (studio to two bedroom) to medium sized (three or four bedroom) townhomes and small apartment buildings. Most of the residential real estate is renter occupied. Many of the residences in the Sacred Heart 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 1970 and 1999.
Sacred Heart has a 15.5% vacancy rate, which is well above average compared to other U.S. neighborhoods (higher than 79.0% of American neighborhoods). Most vacant housing here is vacant year round. This could either signal that there is a weak demand for real estate in the neighborhood or that large amount of new housing has been built and not yet occupied. Either way, if you live here, you may find many of the homes or apartments are empty.
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 Allentown, the Sacred Heart neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
Real Estate
If you love row houses and attached homes, you will probably really like the Sacred Heart neighborhood. The ambiance, the charm, of row houses is something special. And in sheer abundance of row houses, this neighborhood truly stands out. The real estate here has a higher proportion of row houses and attached homes than nearly any neighborhood in America. In fact, 45.7% of the residential real estate here is classified as row houses and attached homes.
In addition, if you like crowded places, then you will probably enjoy the the Sacred Heart neighborhood. According to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive data analysis, this neighborhood is more densely populated than 95.6% of neighborhoods in the U.S., with 23,033 people per square mile living here. Even if you drive or take transit to your place of employment, many people enjoy being able to walk in their neighborhood. What many people don't realize is that most of America's premier vacation locations are also very walkable. The Sacred Heart neighborhood is among the top 5% of American neighborhoods in terms of walkability.
Furthermore, do you watch 'This Old House' on Public Television? Do you love the idea of fixing up a Colonial or Victorian era home, complete with the charm of yesteryear? Do you like to stroll or drive streets lined with gracious older residences? If you found yourself nodding yes to any of these questions, you are going to be interested in this unique neighborhood. The Sacred Heart neighborhood stands out on a national scale for the sheer concentration of historic residences it contains: 63.6% of the residential real estate here was built from 1939 or earlier, some much earlier. This is a greater concentration of historic homes than 97.3% of the neighborhoods in the United States.
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 Sacred Heart neighborhood has a highly unusual pattern of car ownership. 21.0% of the households in this neighborhood don't own a car at all. This is more carless households than NeighborhoodScout found in 95.5% of U.S. neighborhoods.
People
Whether by choice, divorce, or unplanned pregnancy, single moms may have the toughest job in the book. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that the Sacred Heart neighborhood has more single mother households than 95.0% of the neighborhoods in the U.S. Often high concentrations of single mother homes can be a strong indicator of family and social issues such as poverty, high rates of school dropouts, crime, and other societal problems.
Diversity
Did you know that the Sacred Heart neighborhood has more Puerto Rican and Dominican ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 42.6% of this neighborhood's residents have Puerto Rican ancestry and 17.9% have Dominican 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 Sacred Heart neighborhood in Allentown are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 92.8% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 46.6% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 92.6% of U.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 Sacred Heart neighborhood, 37.0% of the working population is employed in manufacturing and laborer 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 29.7% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (17.8%), and 14.6% in executive, management, and professional 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 Sacred Heart neighborhood is Spanish, spoken by 52.4% of households. Other important languages spoken here include English and Italian.
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 Sacred Heart neighborhood in Allentown, PA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Puerto Rican (42.6%). There are also a number of people of Dominican ancestry (17.9%), and residents who report South American roots (8.3%), and some of the residents are also of Mexican ancestry (3.8%), along with some German ancestry residents (3.7%), among others. In addition, 16.9% of the residents of this neighborhood were born in another country.
Getting to Work
Even if your neighborhood is walkable, you may still have to drive to your place of work. Some neighborhoods are located where many can get to work in just a few minutes, while others are located such that most residents have a long and arduous commute. The greatest number of commuters in Sacred Heart neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (48.1% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (68.2%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In addition, quite a number also carpool with coworkers, friends, or neighbors to get to work (20.0%) and 8.7% 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.
