Setting

Land and Water

Coastal: Neighborhoods on the ocean or tidally influenced rivers.

Lakefront: The neighborhood includes shoreline on a significant body of freshwater. These are lakes large enough to include recreation and scenic areas. (Note that smaller lakes are not included, or neighborhoods that have little shoreline on a lake, relative to the size of the entire neighborhood).

Farms: Agricultural land uses are a significant part of the neighborhood and contribute to its character.

Population Density

The look and feel of the neighborhood, from high rises on the coast, to rural farmlands.

Densely Urban: With densities above 10,000 people per square mile these are some of the densest neighborhoods in the nation.

Urban: Generally between 5,000 and 10,000 people per square mile, these are full built up places although not among the most dense in the country.

Suburban: Although not necessarily outside city limits, these neighborhoods have a more generous amount of space per person with densities generally between 1,000 and 5,000 people per square mile.

Rural: Neighborhoods consist mostly of open space or agricultural areas but also generally have around 100 residents per square mile.

Remote: Neighborhoods with the fewest people per square mile in the nation, generally less than 100 per square mile.

Housing Details

Age of Homes

The proportion of homes and apartments in the neighborhood built within a certain time period.

Type of Homes

These are the predominate forms of housing in the neighborhood. Percentages are based on the number of housing units in the neighborhood of each housing type.

Size of Homes

The predominate size of homes in the neighborhood, based on the number of bedrooms. Homes include single family houses as well as apartment and condominium units.

Special Purpose Housing

These housing types are not for sale or for rent to the general public but may have a strong influence on the character of the neighborhood.

Homeownership

Homeownership Rate

The percentage of housing units in the neighborhood that are occupied by the property owner versus occupied by a tenant. (Vacant units are counted separately.)

Lifestyle Character

There isn’t one neighborhood that is best for everyone. The best neighborhood for you may not be the best one for someone else. Similarly, what you want as a first-time home buyer may be different than what you want when you have school-aged children, or when you are nearing retirement.

The length of the bars indicate the percentage of neighborhoods in America that this neighborhood is more family-friendly than, more college student friendly than, more luxurious than, and so forth.

Read Scout’s definitions for each Lifestyle

Special Character

People have personalities, and so do neighborhoods. A neighborhood’s character describes its personality and the feeling one gets when experiencing the neighborhood as a true resident. Quiet and sophisticated? Hip and walkable? The length of the bars indicate the percentage of neighborhoods in America that this neighborhood is more Urbane than, more Hip than, more Quiet than, more Nautical than, more Walkable than.

Read Scout’s definitions for each Special Character

Age

Age groups present in the neighborhood, as a percentage of the total population. Neighborhoods that score highest for mixed ages have the most equitable distribution across all age groups, from infants to senior citizens, all living in the same neighborhood.

Marital Status

Marital status is defined based on the percentage of residents who are 18 and over. Marital Statuses include: Married, Divorced, Widowed and Single (Never Married). (We are not able to include same-sex marriages here because of data limitations. Same-sex couple data is available under Household Type.)

Military & College Status

These are people currently active in the military. They may live on base or off base.

Percent Currently at College / University

These are students enrolled in higher education as either undergraduates or graduate students. They may live on campus or in off campus housing.

Commute to Work

Means of Transport

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. The share of using each mode of transport is measured as percentage of all working adults.

Average One-Way Commute Time

The amount of time spent commuting tells a lot about a neighborhood’s access to jobs and the degree of congestion in the area. The time is calculated for all residents working outside the home.

Vehicles Per Household

The number of vehicles the average household in the neighborhood possesses is a function of wealth, space constraints, the age people of the household (e.g., households with teenagers and parents), and the availability of alternatives to driving.

The measure is defined as the number of vehicles registered per household, as a percentage of all households in the neighborhood.

Migration & Mobility

Percent of Residents Moving Last Year

The percent of all current neighborhood residents who were not living in the same house one year ago. Very high values show a lack of stability in the neighborhood. Very low values may represent insularity to outsiders.

Percent of Residents Born Out of State

This value will be high in neighborhoods that attract new residents from around the country, and low in places where most residents grew up within the same state.

Percent of Residents Foreign Born

Foreign Born residents have immigrated to the United States from another country and may or may not be naturalized citizens.

Race / Ethnic Diversity

Race / Ethnicity

These are the ways neighborhood residents have self-reported their race and ethnicity to the US Census. Asian and Hispanic residents may identify with one of the more specific subcategories.

Racial Diversity

The neighborhoods with the very highest racial diversity will contain roughly equal proportions, or as close as is possible to equal proportions, across all racial groups: White, Black, American Indian, Native Hawaiian / Pacific Islander, and Asian.

Ancestries

These are the most common groups that neighborhood residents self- report as their ancestry. Places with concentrations of people of one or more ancestries often express those shared learned behaviors and this gives each neighborhood its own culture.

Languages Spoken

These are tabulated as the languages people preferentially speak when they are at home with their families.

Average Income

Income

Income is measured either on a per capita basis or median household income. Per capita is the best measure of the average spending power of each person in the neighborhood. Median household income provides the best measure of the budget of the typical family or other non-family household.

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.

Education

Percent of Adults with College Degree

The percentage of adults aged 25 and older that have attained at least a 4 year college degree like a BA.

Percent of Adults with Advanced Degree

The percentage of adults aged 25 and older that have attained a graduate or professional degree above and beyond a 4 year degree, like an MA, MD, JD, MBA or PhD.

FAQ on NeighborhoodScout's Crime Data

NeighborhoodScout® provides exclusive crime risk analytics for every neighborhood in America with up to 98% predictive accuracy. Crime risk indices are nationally comparable on a 1 – 100 scale, where 100 means safer than 100% of U.S. neighborhoods.

Crime risk data are updated annually. Raw crime incidents are sourced from all 18,000+ local law enforcement agencies – municipal, county, transit, park, port, university, tribal and more, assigned to localities, then built into NeighborhoodScout’s proprietary predictive models to provide a comprehensive crime risk profile for every neighborhood and address-vicinity in the U.S.

More about NeighborhoodScout’s crime data methodology

Complete list of crime data FAQs

School Quality Rating

Know how good the public schools are before you buy a home, invest, or relocate. You can search for and find the best schools in any area.

Only NeighborhoodScout gives you nationally comparable school rankings based on test scores, so you can directly compare the quality of schools in any location. In fact, our nationally comparable school ratings are patented.

We also give you the ability to put in the school quality and class size you want, and the search engine will return the best neighborhoods for education in a list and map your results to the neighborhood level.

We are the only information provider to have this level of search functionality. Another NeighborhoodScout exclusive.