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.
Highland Park Southwest median real estate price is $872,869, which is more expensive than 57.0% of the neighborhoods in California and 89.1% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Highland Park Southwest is currently $2,792, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. Rents here are currently lower in price than 61.1% of California neighborhoods.
Highland Park Southwest is an urban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Los Angeles, California.
Highland Park Southwest real estate is primarily made up of small (studio to two bedroom) to medium sized (three or four bedroom) single-family homes and small apartment buildings. Most of the residential real estate is occupied by a mixture of owners and renters. Many of the residences in the Highland Park Southwest 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.
In Highland Park Southwest, the current vacancy rate is 0.0%, which is a lower rate of vacancies than 100.0% of all neighborhoods in the U.S. This means that the housing supply in Highland Park Southwest is very tight compared to the demand for property here.
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 Los Angeles, the Highland Park Southwest neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
Real Estate
This neighborhood has the distinction of having one of the lowest real estate vacancy rates of any neighborhood in America. With just 0.0% of the real estate vacant, this indicates an exceptionally strong demand for real estate in the Highland Park Southwest neighborhood, and/or an issue with creating enough supply for the demand. This could have the effect of increasing real estate prices, increasing supply to meet demand, or both.
In addition, three-deckers, duplexes, old Victorian homes cut up into apartments. Independent stores on the corner selling pizza. These are some of the hallmarks of neighborhoods with lots of small 2, 3, and 4 unit apartment buildings. The Highland Park Southwest neighborhood really stands out in this regard, however, as it is dominated by such small apartment buildings more than nearly any other neighborhood in America. This is a stunning visual and lifestyle example of this type of neighborhood. In fact, 32.8% of the real estate here are small 2, 3, or 4 unit apartment buildings, which is a higher proportion than found in 95.5% of America's neighborhoods.
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 Highland Park Southwest neighborhood stands out on a national scale for the sheer concentration of historic residences it contains: 54.3% of the residential real estate here was built from 1939 or earlier, some much earlier. This is a greater concentration of historic homes than 95.0% of the neighborhoods in the United States.
People
Highland Park Southwest has the amazing distinction of housing more same sex couples living together than 98.1% of neighborhoods in the U.S. If you are seeking such a neighborhood, NeighborhoodScout's analysis shows that this is one place that you should consider.
Diversity
Did you know that the Highland Park Southwest neighborhood has more Croatian and Swiss ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 1.8% of this neighborhood's residents have Croatian ancestry and 1.7% have Swiss ancestry.
Highland Park Southwest is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 8.4% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Chinese at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 97.3% 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 Highland Park Southwest neighborhood in Los Angeles are upper-middle income, making it an above average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 61.2% of the neighborhoods in America. With 12.9% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 56.0% 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 Highland Park Southwest neighborhood, 35.5% of the working population is employed in executive, management, and professional occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is manufacturing and laborer occupations, with 29.9% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (19.2%), and 15.4% in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants.
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 Highland Park Southwest neighborhood is English, spoken by 52.1% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish, Chinese and Tagalog (the first language of the Philippine region).
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 Highland Park Southwest neighborhood in Los Angeles, CA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Mexican (43.8%). There are also a number of people of Asian ancestry (16.1%), and residents who report German roots (10.9%), and some of the residents are also of Italian ancestry (6.9%), along with some English ancestry residents (5.6%), among others. In addition, 34.2% 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 Highland Park Southwest neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (47.1% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (64.8%) 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 (5.6%) . 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.
