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.
Palmer Park median real estate price is $315,625, which is less expensive than 78.0% of Maryland neighborhoods and 59.4% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
The average rental price in Palmer Park is currently $2,300, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. Rents here are currently lower in price than 67.1% of Maryland neighborhoods.
Palmer Park is an urban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Hyattsville, Maryland.
Palmer Park real estate is primarily made up of medium sized (three or four bedroom) to small (studio to two bedroom) townhomes and apartment complexes/high-rise apartments. Most of the residential real estate is occupied by a mixture of owners and renters. Many of the residences in the Palmer Park neighborhood are older, well-established, built between 1940 and 1969. A number of residences were also built between 1970 and 1999.
Real estate vacancies in Palmer Park are 5.0%, which is lower than one will find in 65.5% of American neighborhoods. Demand for real estate in Palmer Park 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
When you see a neighborhood for the first time, the most important thing is often the way it looks, like its homes and its setting. Some places look the same, but they only reveal their true character after living in them for a while because they contain a unique mix of occupational or cultural groups. This neighborhood is very unique in some important ways, according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive exploration and analysis.
Occupations
There are more people living in the Palmer Park neighborhood employed as sales and service workers (49.9%) 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.
Furthermore, the government often provides some of the more stable jobs in the economy. From local, to state, to federal government workers, the government can also be a major employer. What NeighborhoodScout's analysis revealed, is that the Palmer Park neighborhood in particular stands out when compared nationally for the proportion of its working residents who are employed by the government. At 15.3% of its workforce, this neighborhood has a greater concentration of government workers than 97.3% of U.S. neighborhoods.
Real Estate
If you love row houses and attached homes, you will probably really like the Palmer Park neighborhood. The ambiance, the charm, of row houses is something special. And in sheer abundance of row houses, this neighborhood truly stands out. The real estate here has a higher proportion of row houses and attached homes than nearly any neighborhood in America. In fact, 59.4% of the residential real estate here is classified as row houses and attached homes.
Diversity
Did you know that the Palmer Park neighborhood has more Jamaican and Sub-Saharan African ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 6.5% of this neighborhood's residents have Jamaican ancestry and 11.1% have Sub-Saharan African ancestry.
Palmer Park is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 0.8% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Native American languages at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 96.6% 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 Palmer Park neighborhood in Hyattsville are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 76.0% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 25.0% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 76.3% 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 Palmer Park neighborhood, 50.1% 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 17.2% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (16.4%), and 16.2% in manufacturing and laborer occupations.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the Palmer Park neighborhood is English, spoken by 76.4% of households. Some people also speak Spanish (21.6%).
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 Palmer Park neighborhood in Hyattsville, MD, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Sub-Saharan African (11.1%). There are also a number of people of Jamaican ancestry (6.5%), and residents who report Mexican roots (5.2%), and some of the residents are also of African ancestry (4.5%), along with some German ancestry residents (3.9%), among others. In addition, 14.6% 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 Palmer Park neighborhood spend between 30 and 45 minutes commuting one-way to work (38.0% of working residents), which is at or a bit above the average length of a commute across all U.S. neighborhoods.
Here most residents (64.3%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In addition, quite a number also carpool with coworkers, friends, or neighbors to get to work (15.3%) and 6.1% of residents also take the train 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.
