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.
Oakland North median real estate price is $648,041, which is more expensive than 92.7% of the neighborhoods in Illinois and 80.0% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Oakland North is currently $1,540, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. Rents here are currently lower in price than 64.4% of Illinois neighborhoods.
Oakland North is an urban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Chicago, Illinois.
Oakland North 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 Oakland North neighborhood are newer, built in 2000 or more recently. A number of residences were also built between 1940 and 1969.
Real estate vacancies in Oakland North are 4.5%, which is lower than one will find in 69.8% of American neighborhoods. Demand for real estate in Oakland North is above average for the U.S., and may signal some demand for either price increases or new construction of residential product for this neighborhood.
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 Chicago, the Oakland North neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
Modes of Transportation
Our research revealed that more commuters here take the bus to work (18.6% ride the bus) than 98.3% of all American neighborhoods. If you like the idea of leaving your car and home and hopping the bus to work, this might be a good neighborhood for you to consider.
Also, would you like to be able to ride your bike to work? If you are attracted to the idea of getting a little exercise of the two-wheeled type while reducing your carbon footprint, bicycling to work might be the answer. But which neighborhood you live in can make this either impossible, or alternatively, a great and realistic option. NeighborhoodScout's analysis revealed that the Oakland North neighborhood is a fantastic option for bicycle commuters, as 3.9% of commuters here do ride their bikes to and from work on a daily basis. This is a higher amount than we found in 97.1% of the neighborhoods in America.
Occupations
There are more people living in the Oakland North neighborhood employed as sales and service workers (57.1%) than almost any neighborhood in the country. From fast-food service workers to major sales accounts, sales and service workers make up the largest proportion of our national employment picture. But despite that size and importance nationally, this neighborhood still stands out as unique due to the dominance of people living here who work in such occupations.
Car Ownership
We Americans love our cars. Not only are they a necessity for most Americans due to the shape of our neighborhoods and the distances between where we live, work, shop, and go to school, but we also fancy them. As a result, most households in America have one, two, or three cars. But NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis shows that the Oakland North neighborhood has a highly unusual pattern of car ownership. 28.5% of the households in this neighborhood don't own a car at all. This is more carless households than NeighborhoodScout found in 97.0% of U.S. neighborhoods.
Real Estate
The real estate in the Oakland North neighborhood really stands out in the way it looks for a unique reason: this neighborhood has a higher proportion of apartment complexes or high-rise apartments than nearly every neighborhood in the country. Most neighborhoods are a mixture of real estate and housing types, but here it is almost entirely dominated by big apartment buildings and complexes. In fact, 78.8% of the real estate here is classified as apartment complexes or high-rise apartments, which is more than is found in 96.5% of American neighborhoods.
In addition, renter-occupied real estate is dominant in the Oakland North neighborhood. The percentage of rental real estate here, according to exclusive NeighborhoodScout analysis, is 85.0%, which is higher than 95.4% 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.
People
The Oakland North neighborhood stands out for having an average per capita income lower than 96.3% of the neighborhoods in the United States.
In addition, whether by choice, divorce, or unplanned pregnancy, single moms may have the toughest job in the book. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that the Oakland North neighborhood has more single mother households than 95.1% of the neighborhoods in the U.S. Often high concentrations of single mother homes can be a strong indicator of family and social issues such as poverty, high rates of school dropouts, crime, and other societal problems.
Diversity
Significantly, 7.9% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak African languages at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 99.5% 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 Oakland North neighborhood in Chicago are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 96.3% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 15.9% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 62.0% 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 Oakland North neighborhood, 42.9% 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 executive, management, and professional occupations, with 32.7% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations (13.8%), and 10.7% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the Oakland North neighborhood is English, spoken by 96.8% of households. Some people also speak African languages (7.9%).
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 Oakland North neighborhood in Chicago, IL, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Sub-Saharan African (4.4%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (3.6%), and residents who report English roots (1.8%), and some of the residents are also of Polish ancestry (1.6%), along with some Mexican ancestry residents (1.1%), 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 Oakland North neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (54.1% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (56.2%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In addition, quite a number also ride the bus to get to work (18.6%) and 9.1% of residents also carpool with coworkers, friends, or neighbors 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.
