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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.
Ocean Shores is a somewhat small coastal city (i.e. on the ocean, a bay, or inlet) located in the state of Washington. With a population of 7,344 people and just one neighborhood, Ocean Shores is the 120th largest community in Washington.
Occupations and Workforce
Ocean Shores is neither predominantly blue-collar nor white-collar, instead having a mixed workforce of both blue-collar and white-collar jobs. Overall, Ocean Shores is a city of service providers, professionals, and sales and office workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Ocean Shores who work in office and administrative support (17.29%), food service (14.51%), and healthcare suport services (9.94%).
Also of interest is that Ocean Shores has more people living here who work in computers and math than 95% of the places in the US.
Telecommuters are a relatively large percentage of the workforce: 12.04% of people work from home. While this number may seem small overall, as a fraction of the total workforce it is high relative to the nation. These workers are often telecommuters who work in knowledge-based, white-collar professions. For example, Silicon Valley has large numbers of people who telecommute. Other at-home workers may be self-employed people who operate small businesses out of their homes.
Setting & Lifestyle
Another notable thing is that Ocean Shores is an extremely popular destination for tourists and seasonal residents. So much of the population is seasonal such that the city’s population swells significantly during the vacation season, and drops again when the season ends. Because of this, much of the local economy is centered around tourism; some businesses may be operated only during the high season. During the low season, year-round residents will notice that the city is a substantially quieter place to live.
Residents will find that the city is relatively quiet. This is because it is not over-populated, and it has fewer college students, renters, and young children - all of whom can be noisy at times. So, if you're looking for a relatively peaceful place to live, Ocean Shores is worth considering.
One of the nice things about Ocean Shores is that it is nautical, which means that parts of it are somewhat historic and touch the ocean or tidal bodies of water, such as inlets and bays. Because of this, visitors and locals will often go to these areas to take in the scenery or to enjoy waterfront activities.
As is often the case in a small city, Ocean Shores doesn't have a public transportation system that people use for their commute.
Demographics
The education level of Ocean Shores citizens, measured as those with bachelor's degrees or advanced degrees, is similar to the national average for all American cities and towns. 20.31% of adults 25 and older in Ocean Shores have a college degree.
The per capita income in Ocean Shores in 2022 was $33,662, which is lower middle income relative to Washington, and middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $134,648 for a family of four. However, Ocean Shores contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
Ocean Shores is a somewhat ethnically-diverse city. The people who call Ocean Shores home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Ocean Shores residents report their race to be White, followed by Native American. Important ancestries of people in Ocean Shores include Irish, German, English, Norwegian, and French.
The most common language spoken in Ocean Shores is English. Other important languages spoken here include Polish and Tagalog.
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.
Real Estate
Do you like a coastal setting? If so, this neighborhood may be to your liking. The neighborhood is on the ocean, a bay, or inlet. Often such coastal places have amenities and recreational activities on the waterfront that are attractive to residents and visitors alike. In addition to being coastal, is a very nautical neighborhood, meaning that it is somewhat historic, walkable, densely populated and on the water. This gives the neighborhood a very nautical feel, with some seaside and shipping feel, which some may really enjoy the sights and sounds of.
In addition, despite all of the residential real estate here in the neighborhood, NeighborhoodScout has discovered that much of it is vacant. In resort or second-home vacation areas, this naturally occurs because homes and apartments are seasonally occupied, and empty for a portion of the year. In non-vacation or resort areas, however, this can be an indicator of property abandonment or a weak real estate market. The vacancy rate here is 32.8%, which is higher than 95.8% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
Modes of Transportation
Would you like to be able to ride your bike to work? If you are attracted to the idea of getting a little exercise of the two-wheeled type while reducing your carbon footprint, bicycling to work might be the answer. But which neighborhood you live in can make this either impossible, or alternatively, a great and realistic option. NeighborhoodScout's analysis revealed that the neighborhood is a fantastic option for bicycle commuters, as 4.9% of commuters here do ride their bikes to and from work on a daily basis. This is a higher amount than we found in 98.1% of the neighborhoods in America.
Length of Commute
Regardless of the means by which residents commute, this neighborhood has a length of commute that is notable. Long commutes can be brutal. They take time, money, and energy, leaving less of you for yourself and your family. The residents of the 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 96.6% of all neighborhoods in America.
Diversity
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Finnish and Croatian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 3.5% of this neighborhood's residents have Finnish ancestry and 1.3% have Croatian 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 neighborhood in Ocean Shores are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 74.0% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 11.0% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 51.7% of U.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 neighborhood, 30.8% of the working population is employed in executive, management, and professional occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations, with 27.2% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (26.5%), and 15.5% 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 neighborhood is English, spoken by 93.2% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Polish, Tagalog (the first language of the Philippine region) and Spanish.
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 neighborhood in Ocean Shores, WA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Irish (22.1%). There are also a number of people of German ancestry (15.8%), and residents who report English roots (11.5%), and some of the residents are also of Norwegian ancestry (9.1%), along with some Native American ancestry residents (3.8%), among others.
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 neighborhood spend under 15 minutes commuting one-way to work (57.0% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America. However, there is also a significant group of residents (11.3%) who commute over an hour in each direction.
Here most residents (61.4%) 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 (12.6%) and 9.0% of residents also hop out the door and walk to work 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.
