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.
Riverton median real estate price is $72,695, which is less expensive than 97.3% of Pennsylvania neighborhoods and 97.6% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
The average rental price in Riverton is currently $896, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. Rents here are currently lower in price than 98.0% of Pennsylvania neighborhoods.
Riverton is a suburban neighborhood (based on population density) located in McKeesport, Pennsylvania.
Riverton 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 Riverton neighborhood are older, well-established, built between 1940 and 1969. A number of residences were also built before 1940.
Vacant apartments or homes are a major fact of life in Riverton. The current real estate vacancy rate here is 17.8%. This is higher than the rate of vacancies in 83.5% 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.
Notable & Unique Neighborhood Characteristics
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.
People
One of the unique characteristics of the Riverton neighborhood revealed by analysis is that the per capita income of residents here is lower than that found in 99.9% of the neighborhoods in America. The Riverton neighborhood also has a greater percentage of children living in poverty (70.1%) than found in 98.5% of all U.S. neighborhoods. Children living in poverty is one of the challenges facing America, and the world, and in this neighborhood in particular, the problem can be considered acute.
In addition, neighborhoodScout's exclusive research revealed that 98.3% of the adult residents in the Riverton neighborhood do not have a 4-year college degree, which is a lower rate of college graduated adults than found in 98.7% of the neighborhoods in America.
Also, single parenting is hard. But you don't have to tell the Riverton neighborhood about it; they already know. 22.6% of this neighborhood's households are run by single mothers, which is a higher concentration than NeighborhoodScout found in 98.1% of American neighborhoods. Further NeighborhoodScout research showed strong statistical correlations among high rates of children living in single parent households, and neighborhood crime, particularly violent crime, neighborhood poverty, and, importantly, the percentage of low weight births and rates of infant mortality.
Modes of Transportation
If your dream is to be able to ride your bike to work each day, look no further than this unique neighborhood. With 4.2% of residents in the Riverton neighborhood commuting on a bicycle to and from work daily, this neighborhood has more bicycle commuters than 97.5% of all neighborhoods in the U.S., according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis.
Also, in the Riverton 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 12.7% of residents here. This is a higher proportion of walking commuters than we found in 96.3% of American neighborhoods. Get ready to put on your walking shoes if you move here!
Finally, more people ride the bus in this neighborhood each day to get to work than 95.7% of U.S. neighborhoods.
Car Ownership
American households most often have a car, and regularly they have two or three. But households in the Riverton neighborhood buck this trend. 24.8% 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.
Real Estate
Renter-occupied real estate is dominant in the Riverton neighborhood. The percentage of rental real estate here, according to exclusive NeighborhoodScout analysis, is 86.2%, which is higher than 95.7% 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.
Diversity
Did you know that the Riverton neighborhood has more Hungarian and Slovak ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 4.9% of this neighborhood's residents have Hungarian ancestry and 2.9% have Slovak ancestry.
Riverton is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 11.0% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Polish at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 98.5% of the neighborhoods in America.
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 Riverton neighborhood in McKeesport are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 99.9% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 70.1% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 98.5% 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 Riverton neighborhood, 31.4% of the working population is employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is manufacturing and laborer occupations, with 30.6% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (28.6%), and 9.3% 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 Riverton neighborhood is English, spoken by 91.7% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Polish 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 Riverton neighborhood in McKeesport, PA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as English (22.0%). There are also a number of people of German ancestry (13.9%), and residents who report Irish roots (9.0%), and some of the residents are also of Sub-Saharan African ancestry (8.6%), along with some African ancestry residents (8.6%), among others.
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 Riverton neighborhood spend under 15 minutes commuting one-way to work (34.2% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.
Here most residents (58.6%) 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 (12.7%) and 11.6% 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.
