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.
Barbary Coast median real estate price is $2,605,397, which is more expensive than 95.4% of the neighborhoods in California and 99.2% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Barbary Coast is currently $968, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. Rents here are currently lower in price than 99.9% of California neighborhoods.
Barbary Coast is a densely urban neighborhood (based on population density) located in San Francisco, California.
Barbary Coast real estate is primarily made up of small (studio to two bedroom) to large (four, five or more bedroom) apartment complexes/high-rise apartments and small apartment buildings. Most of the residential real estate is renter occupied. Many of the residences in the Barbary Coast 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 2000 and the present.
Vacant apartments or homes are a major fact of life in Barbary Coast. The current real estate vacancy rate here is 16.9%. This is higher than the rate of vacancies in 83.0% 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
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.
Modes of Transportation
In the Barbary Coast 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 49.2% of residents here. This is a higher proportion of walking commuters than we found in 99.8% of American neighborhoods. Get ready to put on your walking shoes if you move here!
Also, more people ride the bus in this neighborhood each day to get to work than 99.8% of U.S. neighborhoods.
People
The Barbary Coast neighborhood stands out for having an average per capita income lower than 99.7% of the neighborhoods in the United States.
Car Ownership
Most American households own a car or other vehicle. Many own two cars or perhaps three. In the United States, it is useful to have an automobile not only for commuting, but also for shopping and getting to other services one needs. But NeighborhoodScout's analysis revealed that households in the Barbary Coast neighborhood have a highly unusual car ownership. 44.2% of the households in this neighborhood don't own a car at all. This is more carless households than NeighborhoodScout found in 98.4% of U.S. neighborhoods.
Real Estate
If you like crowded places, then you will probably enjoy the the Barbary Coast neighborhood. According to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive data analysis, this neighborhood is more densely populated than 96.3% of neighborhoods in the U.S., with 26,336 people per square mile living here. Being a walkable neighborhood can help increase property values for the simple reason that people enjoy it and value it. To put it plainly, despite our love affair with the automobile, American's enjoy taking to the streets, sidewalks, paths, and courtyards of a place to get a coffee, relax, and take in the sights and sounds. And, according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive and first quantitative walkable score index, the Barbary Coast neighborhood is one of the most walkable neighborhoods in America.
In addition, one of the really unique and interesting things about the look and setting of the Barbary Coast neighborhood is that it is almost entirely dominated by large apartment buildings, such as apartment complexes or high-rise apartments. 86.2% of the residential real estate here is classified as such. This puts this neighborhood on the map as having a higher proportion of large apartment buildings than 97.6% of all neighborhoods in America.
Furthermore, 92.5% of the real estate in the Barbary Coast neighborhood is occupied by renters, which is nearly the highest rate of renter occupancy of any neighborhood in America.
Also of note, the Barbary Coast 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 88.7% 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.
Diversity
Did you know that the Barbary Coast neighborhood has more Asian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 90.5% of this neighborhood's residents have Asian ancestry.
Barbary Coast is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 82.3% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Chinese at home. This is a higher percentage than 100.0% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
Migration / Stability
Some neighborhoods have more internal cohesiveness than others. While other neighborhoods feel like a collection of strangers who just happen to live near each other. Sometimes this comes down to not only the personalities of the people in a place, but how long people have been together in that neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research has revealed some interesting things about the rootedness of people in the Barbary Coast neighborhood. What is interesting to note, is that the Barbary Coast neighborhood has a greater percentage of residents born in another country (74.9%) than are found in 99.9% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
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 Barbary Coast neighborhood in San Francisco are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 99.7% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 32.5% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 84.1% of U.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 Barbary Coast neighborhood, 34.9% of the working population is employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations, with 30.0% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations (21.1%), and 14.0% in executive, management, and professional occupations.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the Barbary Coast neighborhood is Chinese, spoken by 82.3% of households. Some people also speak English (13.1%).
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 Barbary Coast neighborhood in San Francisco, CA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Asian (90.5%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (1.6%), and residents who report German roots (1.4%). In addition, 74.9% 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 Barbary Coast neighborhood spend under 15 minutes commuting one-way to work (36.7% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.
Here most residents (49.2%) hop out the door and walk to work to get to work. In addition, quite a number also ride the bus to get to work (34.2%) and 6.6% of residents also take the train for their daily commute. This is a special neighborhood for the number of people who walk to work. Combining exercise, low cost, and reduced pollution, plus the chance to see your neighbors, walking to work is fairly uncommon in America but likely to increase as people try to reduce their dependence on automobiles, and this neighborhood offers that opportunity today.
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.
