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.
Forest Hills Northwest median real estate price is $1,165,165, which is more expensive than 79.2% of the neighborhoods in New York and 93.0% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Forest Hills Northwest is currently $3,318, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. The average rental cost in this neighborhood is higher than 61.4% of the neighborhoods in New York.
Forest Hills Northwest is a densely urban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Queens, New York.
Forest Hills Northwest 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 small apartment buildings. Most of the residential real estate is renter occupied. Many of the residences in the Forest Hills Northwest neighborhood are older, well-established, built between 1940 and 1969. A number of residences were also built between 2000 and the present.
In Forest Hills Northwest, the current vacancy rate is 1.7%, which is a lower rate of vacancies than 87.9% of all neighborhoods in the U.S. This means that the housing supply in Forest Hills Northwest is very tight compared to the demand for property here.
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.
Modes of Transportation
More people ride the bus in this neighborhood each day to get to work than 98.7% of U.S. neighborhoods.
Also, if you like to ride the train to work, this neighborhood may be for you. NeighborhoodScout's research revealed that 22.9% of the Forest Hills Northwest neighborhood's commuters ride the train to and from work each day, which is more than we found in 97.7% of America's neighborhoods.
Finally, in the Forest Hills Northwest 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 13.7% of residents here. This is a higher proportion of walking commuters than we found in 96.8% of American neighborhoods. Get ready to put on your walking shoes if you move here!
Real Estate
The Forest Hills Northwest neighborhood is very densely populated compared to most U.S. neighborhoods. In fact, with 45,057 persons per square mile in the neighborhood, it is more packed with people than 98.2% of the nation'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 Forest Hills Northwest neighborhood have a highly unusual car ownership. 37.3% of the households in this neighborhood don't own a car at all. This is more carless households than NeighborhoodScout found in 97.9% of U.S. neighborhoods.
Diversity
Did you know that the Forest Hills Northwest neighborhood has more South American and Russian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 22.9% of this neighborhood's residents have South American ancestry and 7.6% have Russian ancestry.
Forest Hills Northwest is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 19.6% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Russian at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 100.0% of the neighborhoods in America.
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 Forest Hills Northwest neighborhood. More residents of the Forest Hills Northwest neighborhood live here today that also were living in this same neighborhood five years ago than is found in 97.5% of U.S. neighborhoods. This neighborhood is really made up of people who know each other, don't move often, and have lived here in this very neighborhood for quite a while. What is interesting to note, is that the Forest Hills Northwest neighborhood has a greater percentage of residents born in another country (50.8%) than are found in 97.7% 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 Forest Hills Northwest neighborhood in Queens are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 72.2% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 29.8% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 81.6% 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 Forest Hills Northwest neighborhood, 28.7% 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 28.7% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (25.2%), and 17.4% in manufacturing and laborer 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 Forest Hills Northwest neighborhood is Spanish, spoken by 29.6% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Russian, English, Chinese and German/Yiddish.
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 Forest Hills Northwest neighborhood in Queens, NY, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Asian (29.6%). There are also a number of people of South American ancestry (22.9%), and residents who report Russian roots (7.6%), and some of the residents are also of Puerto Rican ancestry (3.8%), along with some Italian ancestry residents (1.9%), among others. In addition, 50.8% 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 Forest Hills Northwest neighborhood spend between 45 minutes and one hour commuting one-way to work (47.8% of working residents), longer and tougher than most commutes in America.
Here most residents (29.9%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In addition, quite a number also take the train to get to work (22.9%) and 19.6% of residents also ride the bus 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.
