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 Meadow Ln / Dryad Dr median real estate price is $140,765, which is less expensive than 85.8% of Texas neighborhoods and 90.1% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
The average rental price in Sunset Meadow Ln / Dryad Dr is currently $1,337, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. Rents here are currently lower in price than 79.8% of Texas neighborhoods.
Sunset Meadow Ln / Dryad Dr is a densely urban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Houston, Texas.
Sunset Meadow Ln / Dryad Dr 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 Sunset Meadow Ln / Dryad Dr neighborhood are established but not old, having been built between 1970 and 1999. A number of residences were also built between 1940 and 1969.
Vacant apartments or homes are a major fact of life in Sunset Meadow Ln / Dryad Dr. The current real estate vacancy rate here is 20.8%. This is higher than the rate of vacancies in 88.6% of all U.S. neighborhoods. In addition, most vacant housing here is vacant year round. This can sometimes be the case in neighborhoods dominated by new construction that is not yet occupied. But often neighborhoods with vacancy rates this high are places that can be plagued by a protracted vacancy problem. If you live here, you may find that a number of buildings in your neighborhood are actually empty.
Notable & Unique Neighborhood Characteristics
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.
People
The Sunset Meadow Ln / Dryad Dr neighborhood stands out for having an average per capita income lower than 98.5% of the neighborhoods in the United States. Also of note, 93.5% of the children in this area live in poverty; an extraordinarily high percentage compared to other neighborhoods in the nation. In a nation where approximately one in four children grows up in poverty, this neighborhood stands out for the depth of the problem manifested here.
In addition, single parenting is hard. But you don't have to tell the Sunset Meadow Ln / Dryad Dr neighborhood about it; they already know. 17.7% of this neighborhood's households are run by single mothers, which is a higher concentration than NeighborhoodScout found in 95.5% of American neighborhoods. Further NeighborhoodScout research showed strong statistical correlations among high rates of children living in single parent households, and neighborhood crime, particularly violent crime, neighborhood poverty, and, importantly, the percentage of low weight births and rates of infant mortality.
Real Estate
Most neighborhoods are composed of a mixture of ages of homes, but the Sunset Meadow Ln / Dryad Dr stands out as rather unique in having nearly all of its residential real estate built in one time period, namely between 1970 and 1999, generally considered to be established, but not old housing. What you'll sense when you look around or drive the streets of this neighborhood is that many of the residences look the same because of this similarity of age. In fact, 93.5% of the residential real estate here was built in this one time period.
In addition, the Sunset Meadow Ln / Dryad Dr 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 88.5% 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, renter-occupied real estate is dominant in the Sunset Meadow Ln / Dryad Dr neighborhood. The percentage of rental real estate here, according to exclusive NeighborhoodScout analysis, is 90.9%, which is higher than 97.1% 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.
Also of note, if you like crowded places, then you will probably enjoy the the Sunset Meadow Ln / Dryad Dr neighborhood. According to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive data analysis, this neighborhood is more densely populated than 95.9% of neighborhoods in the U.S., with 23,997 people per square mile living here.
Diversity
Did you know that the Sunset Meadow Ln / Dryad Dr neighborhood has more Sub-Saharan African and Jamaican ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 31.4% of this neighborhood's residents have Sub-Saharan African ancestry and 10.3% have Jamaican ancestry.
Sunset Meadow Ln / Dryad Dr is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 3.5% 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 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 Sunset Meadow Ln / Dryad Dr neighborhood in Houston are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 98.5% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 93.5% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 99.8% 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 Sunset Meadow Ln / Dryad Dr neighborhood, 49.8% of the working population is employed in executive, management, and professional occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants, with 22.5% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations (16.5%), and 11.2% 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 Meadow Ln / Dryad Dr neighborhood is English, spoken by 87.0% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish, African languages and Russian.
Ethnicity / Ancestry
Boston's Beacon Hill blue-blood streets, Brooklyn's Orthodox Jewish enclaves, Los Angeles' Persian neighborhoods. Each has its own culture derived primarily from the ancestries and culture of the residents who call these neighborhoods home. Likewise, each neighborhood in America has its own culture – some more unique than others – based on lifestyle, occupations, the types of households – and importantly – on the ethnicities and ancestries of the people who live in the neighborhood. Understanding where people came from, who their grandparents or great-grandparents were, can help you understand how a neighborhood is today.
In the Sunset Meadow Ln / Dryad Dr neighborhood in Houston, TX, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Sub-Saharan African (31.4%). There are also a number of people of Jamaican ancestry (10.3%), and residents who report Mexican roots (5.0%), and some of the residents are also of English ancestry (4.7%), along with some German ancestry residents (3.9%), 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 Sunset Meadow Ln / Dryad Dr neighborhood spend under 15 minutes commuting one-way to work (32.9% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.
Here most residents (72.9%) 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 (18.6%) . 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.
