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.
Sunset Park median real estate price is $1,560,766, which is more expensive than 91.9% of the neighborhoods in New York and 97.7% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Sunset Park is currently $3,858, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. The average rental cost in this neighborhood is higher than 75.4% of the neighborhoods in New York.
Sunset Park is a densely urban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Brooklyn, New York.
Sunset Park 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 Sunset Park 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 1940 and 1969.
Real estate vacancies in Sunset Park are 5.4%, which is lower than one will find in 64.0% of American neighborhoods. Demand for real estate in Sunset 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
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 Brooklyn, the Sunset Park neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
Modes of Transportation
In the Sunset Park neighborhood, 46.0% of people ride the train to work each day. This is a very high percentage compared to most places. In fact, NeighborhoodScout's analysis reveals that this is a higher level of train ridership than in 99.2% of the neighborhoods in America.
Also, in the Sunset Park 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 13.6% of residents here. This is a higher proportion of walking commuters than we found in 96.6% of American neighborhoods. Get ready to put on your walking shoes if you move here!
Finally, our research revealed that more commuters here take the bus to work (10.5% ride the bus) than 95.1% 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.
Real Estate
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 Sunset Park 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, 59.0% of the real estate here are small 2, 3, or 4 unit apartment buildings, which is a higher proportion than found in 99.1% of America's neighborhoods.
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 Sunset Park neighborhood have a highly unusual car ownership. 57.5% of the households in this neighborhood don't own a car at all. This is more carless households than NeighborhoodScout found in 99.1% of U.S. neighborhoods.
Diversity
Did you know that the Sunset Park neighborhood has more Dominican and South American ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 7.5% of this neighborhood's residents have Dominican ancestry and 10.4% have South American ancestry.
Sunset Park is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 6.4% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Arabic at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 99.0% 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 Sunset Park neighborhood in Brooklyn are middle-income, making it a moderate income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 58.2% of the neighborhoods in America. With 32.2% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 83.2% 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 Sunset Park neighborhood, 36.2% 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 manufacturing and laborer occupations, with 25.9% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in executive, management, and professional occupations (23.5%), and 14.3% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
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 Sunset Park neighborhood is Spanish, spoken by 58.7% of households. Other important languages spoken here include English, Arabic and Langs. of India.
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 Sunset Park neighborhood in Brooklyn, NY, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Mexican (30.9%). There are also a number of people of Puerto Rican ancestry (12.5%), and residents who report South American roots (10.4%), and some of the residents are also of Dominican ancestry (7.5%), along with some Arab ancestry residents (4.8%), among others. In addition, 31.4% 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 Sunset Park neighborhood spend between 30 and 45 minutes commuting one-way to work (35.1% of working residents), which is at or a bit above the average length of a commute across all U.S. neighborhoods.
Here most residents (46.0%) take the train to get to work. In addition, quite a number also hop out the door and walk to work to get to work (13.6%) and 12.5% of residents also drive alone in a private automobile for their daily commute. This neighborhood is distinguished by the high number of residents who take the train to work each day, which can be a very good way to get to work at a lower cost and with less pollution.
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.
