Median real estate price in the City Center of Philadelphia is $1,479,767, which is more expensive than 99.8% of the neighborhoods in Pennsylvania and 96.3% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Philadelphia City Center is currently $3,523, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. The average rental cost in this neighborhood is higher than 96.2% of the neighborhoods in Pennsylvania.
Philadelphia City Center is a densely urban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Real estate in the City Center of Philadelphia, PA is primarily made up of small (studio to two bedroom) to medium sized (three or four bedroom) apartment complexes/high-rise apartments and townhomes. Most of the residential real estate is occupied by a mixture of owners and renters. Many of the residences in the City Center neighborhood are newer, built in 2000 or more recently. A number of residences were also built before 1940.
Philadelphia City Center has a 13.6% vacancy rate, which is well above average compared to other U.S. neighborhoods (higher than 75.5% of American neighborhoods). Most vacant housing here is vacant year round. This could either signal that there is a weak demand for real estate in the neighborhood or that large amount of new housing has been built and not yet occupied. Either way, if you live here, you may find many of the homes or apartments are empty.
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.
If you come to know the people here, you will recognize that you're in the company of one of the wealthiest communities in the nation. In fact, a mere 2.7% of America's neighborhoods are wealthier than the Philadelphia City Center neighborhood. Real estate here is exceedingly well-maintained, and similarly, tends to maintain its value over time. The cars driven are mostly luxury brands like Mercedes, Audi, BMW, and Lexus. If the public schools aren't up to snuff, the residents of this neighborhood preferentially send their children to private preparatory schools. Vacation to Disney? Yes, but equally popular are summers in Europe. As one would expect in a considerably wealthy neighborhood such as this, Philadelphia City Center also has one of the lowest ratings of child poverty in the nation.
In addition, think about the people you know personally. How many of them would purchase box seats to opening night at the symphony? How many of them regularly attend gallery openings, or are the first to reserve tickets to opening night at the ballet? If they're like most of us, they don't do any of these things. But if you're among an exclusive crowd of wealthy and refined patrons of the arts, then you'll feel right at home in the Philadelphia City Center neighborhood: a neighborhood in which more "urban sophisticates" live than 98.9% of neighborhoods across the U.S. Here, your neighbors are defined as having urbane tastes in literature, music, live theatre and the arts. They are wealthy, educated, travel in style, and live a big city lifestyle whether or not they live in or near a big city. In addition to being an excellent choice for urban sophisticates, this neighborhood is also a very good choice for highly educated executives and college students.
Also, do you like to read, write, and learn? Are you curious about the world? If so, this neighborhood may be a good fit for you. NeighborhoodScout's research revealed that a full 79.8% of the adults living in the Philadelphia City Center neighborhood have earned at least a bachelor's degree. This is a higher rate than NeighborhoodScout found in 97.6% of U.S. neighborhoods. In this way, this neighborhood truly stands out.
Finally, one of the most interesting things about the Philadelphia City Center neighborhood is that it has a greater concentration of residents who live alone than most all neighborhoods in America. With 51.6% of the households here made up of people living alone, NeighborhoodScout's research reveals that this is a larger proportion of people living alone than in 96.2% of the neighborhoods in America.
In the Philadelphia City Center neighborhood, many people's commute means walking from the bedroom to the home office. NeighborhoodScout's analysis found that 54.8% of residents worked from home. This may not seem like a large number, but Scout's research shows that this is a higher percentage of people working from home than 99.9% of the neighborhoods in America. Often people who work from home are engaged in the creative or technological economy, such as is found in areas around Boston, and in Silicon Valley. Other times, people may be engaged in other businesses like trading stocks from home, or running a small beauty salon.
Also, if your dream is to be able to ride your bike to work each day, look no further than this unique neighborhood. With 3.7% of residents in the Philadelphia City Center neighborhood commuting on a bicycle to and from work daily, this neighborhood has more bicycle commuters than 96.9% of all neighborhoods in the U.S., according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis.
Finally, if you like to ride the train to work, this neighborhood may be for you. NeighborhoodScout's research revealed that 14.2% of the Philadelphia City Center neighborhood's commuters ride the train to and from work each day, which is more than we found in 96.5% of America's neighborhoods.
The real estate in the Philadelphia City Center 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, 96.3% of the real estate here is classified as apartment complexes or high-rise apartments, which is more than is found in 99.3% of American neighborhoods.
In addition, the Philadelphia City Center 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 88.4% 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.
Furthermore, if you like crowded places, then you will probably enjoy the the Philadelphia City Center neighborhood. According to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive data analysis, this neighborhood is more densely populated than 95.2% of neighborhoods in the U.S., with 21,129 people per square mile living here. Even if you drive or take transit to your place of employment, many people enjoy being able to walk in their neighborhood. What many people don't realize is that most of America's premier vacation locations are also very walkable. The Philadelphia City Center neighborhood is among the top 5% of American neighborhoods in terms of walkability.
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 Philadelphia City Center neighborhood has a highly unusual pattern of car ownership. 36.1% of the households in this neighborhood don't own a car at all. This is more carless households than NeighborhoodScout found in 97.8% of U.S. neighborhoods.
Executives, managers and professionals make up 74.4% of the workforce in the Philadelphia City Center neighborhood which, according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis, is a higher proportion of such high-level people than is found in 97.2% of the neighborhoods in America. For this reason, this neighborhood really stands out as unique.
Regardless of the means by which residents commute, this neighborhood has a length of commute that is notable. Long commutes can be brutal. They take time, money, and energy, leaving less of you for yourself and your family. The residents of the Philadelphia City Center neighborhood unfortunately have the distinction of having, on average, a longer commute than most any neighborhood in America. 10.3% of commuters here travel more than one hour just one-way to work. That is more than two hours per day. This percentage with two-hour + round-trip commutes is higher than NeighborhoodScout found in 95.9% of all neighborhoods in America.
Did you know that the Philadelphia City Center neighborhood has more Eastern European and Dutch ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 8.8% of this neighborhood's residents have Eastern European ancestry and 9.5% have Dutch ancestry.
Philadelphia City Center is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 3.5% 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 97.3% of the neighborhoods in America.
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 City Center neighborhood in Philadelphia are wealthy, making it among the 15% highest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 97.3% of the neighborhoods in America. In addition, 0.0% of the children seventeen and under living in this neighborhood are living below the federal poverty line, which is a lower rate of childhood poverty than is found in 100.0% of America'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 Philadelphia City Center neighborhood, 74.4% of the working population is employed in executive, management, and professional occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations, with 15.1% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (9.4%).
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 Philadelphia City Center neighborhood is English, spoken by 71.1% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish, Chinese, Arabic and Korean.
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 City Center neighborhood in Philadelphia, PA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as English (14.4%). There are also a number of people of Asian ancestry (10.0%), and residents who report Dutch roots (9.5%), and some of the residents are also of Eastern European ancestry (8.8%), along with some Italian ancestry residents (8.7%), among others. In addition, 23.5% of the residents of this neighborhood were born in another country.
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 Philadelphia City Center neighborhood spend between 30 and 45 minutes commuting one-way to work (46.4% of working residents), which is at or a bit above the average length of a commute across all U.S. neighborhoods. However, there is also a significant group of residents (10.3%) who commute over an hour in each direction.
Here most residents (14.2%) take the train to get to work. In addition, quite a number also drive alone in a private automobile to get to work (12.0%) and 9.7% of residents also hop out the door and walk to work 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.
