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.
Historic Downtown Martinez / Downtown Martinez median real estate price is $575,352, which is less expensive than 77.0% of California neighborhoods and 28.1% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
The average rental price in Historic Downtown Martinez / Downtown Martinez is currently $2,427, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. Rents here are currently lower in price than 79.4% of California neighborhoods.
Historic Downtown Martinez / Downtown Martinez is a suburban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Martinez, California.
Historic Downtown Martinez / Downtown Martinez real estate is primarily made up of small (studio to two bedroom) to medium sized (three or four bedroom) small apartment buildings and apartment complexes/high-rise apartments. Most of the residential real estate is renter occupied. Many of the residences in the Historic Downtown Martinez / Downtown Martinez 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 Historic Downtown Martinez / Downtown Martinez, 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 Historic Downtown Martinez / Downtown Martinez 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 Martinez, the Historic Downtown Martinez / Downtown Martinez neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
Real Estate
With a real estate vacancy rate of only 0.0%, the Historic Downtown Martinez / Downtown Martinez neighborhood has a lower vacancy rate than 100.0% of U.S. neighborhoods, a very elite group. Such a low vacancy rate may indicate very strong real estate demand in the neighborhood combined with some impediments to increasing supply, such as zoning or existing density of development, among other potential reasons.
In addition, the Historic Downtown Martinez / Downtown Martinez neighborhood is very unique in that it has one of the highest proportions of one, two, or no bedroom real estate of any neighborhood in America. Most neighborhoods have a mixture of home or apartment sizes from small to large, but here the concentration of studios and other small living spaces is at near-record heights. With 91.6% of the real estate here of this small size, this most assuredly is a notable feature that makes this neighborhood unique, along with just a handful of other neighborhoods in the U.S. that share this characteristic.
People
Of note is NeighborhoodScout's research finding that the Historic Downtown Martinez / Downtown Martinez neighborhood has some of the lowest rates of children living in poverty of any neighborhood in the United States. In a nation where approximately 1 in 4 children are living in poverty, the Historic Downtown Martinez / Downtown Martinez community truly stands out from the rest in this regard.
In addition, an interesting characteristic about the Historic Downtown Martinez / Downtown Martinez neighborhood is that there are more incarcerated people living here than 99.5% of neighborhoods in the U.S. The United States has the highest rate of incarceration in the world, currently with 1 out of every 100 adults in the country are incarcerated as a punishment for crimes committed. The extremely high incarceration rate of this neighborhood could mean that a prison, juvenile detention facility or other correctional facility occupies a large proportion of the neighborhood, or contains a large portion of the neighborhood's population.
Modes of Transportation
In the Historic Downtown Martinez / Downtown Martinez 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 11.5% of residents here. This is a higher proportion of walking commuters than we found in 95.8% of American neighborhoods. Get ready to put on your walking shoes if you move here!
Diversity
Did you know that the Historic Downtown Martinez / Downtown Martinez neighborhood has more Yugoslav ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 0.4% of this neighborhood's residents have Yugoslav ancestry.
The Neighbors
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. Equally important is the rate of people, particularly children, who live below the federal poverty line. In some wealthy gated communities, the areas immediately surrounding can have high rates of childhood poverty, which indicates other social issues. NeighborhoodScout's analysis reveals both aspects of income and poverty for this neighborhood.
The neighbors in the Historic Downtown Martinez / Downtown Martinez neighborhood in Martinez are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 66.4% of U.S. neighborhoods. In addition, 0.0% of the children seventeen and under living in this neighborhood are living below the federal poverty line, which is a lower rate of childhood poverty than is found in 100.0% of America'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 Historic Downtown Martinez / Downtown Martinez neighborhood, 46.6% 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 24.4% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (19.8%), and 12.1% in government jobs, whether they are in local, state, or federal positions.
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 Historic Downtown Martinez / Downtown Martinez neighborhood is English, spoken by 80.7% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish 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 Historic Downtown Martinez / Downtown Martinez neighborhood in Martinez, CA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Mexican (25.3%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (10.6%), and residents who report German roots (6.8%), and some of the residents are also of English ancestry (4.9%), along with some Norwegian ancestry residents (4.6%), among others. In addition, 11.1% of the residents of this neighborhood were born in another country.
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 Historic Downtown Martinez / Downtown Martinez neighborhood spend under 15 minutes commuting one-way to work (42.8% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.
Here most residents (79.5%) 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 (11.5%) . 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.
