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.
Calvert Square median real estate price is $286,965, which is less expensive than 71.1% of Virginia neighborhoods and 60.0% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
The average rental price in Calvert Square is currently $1,203, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. Rents here are currently lower in price than 92.7% of Virginia neighborhoods.
Calvert Square is an urban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Norfolk, Virginia.
Calvert Square 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 townhomes. Most of the residential real estate is renter occupied. Many of the residences in the Calvert Square 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 Calvert Square are 3.1%, which is lower than one will find in 79.4% of American neighborhoods. Demand for real estate in Calvert Square 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
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 Calvert Square neighborhood stands out for having an average per capita income lower than 99.9% of the neighborhoods in the United States. The Calvert Square neighborhood also has a greater percentage of children living in poverty (86.1%) than found in 99.6% of all U.S. neighborhoods. Children living in poverty is one of the challenges facing America, and the world, and in this neighborhood in particular, the problem can be considered acute.
In addition, single parenting is hard. But you don't have to tell the Calvert Square neighborhood about it; they already know. 29.7% of this neighborhood's households are run by single mothers, which is a higher concentration than NeighborhoodScout found in 99.5% 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.
Modes of Transportation
Our research shows that more people carpool to work here in the Calvert Square (37.1%) than in 99.7% of the neighborhoods in America.
Also, more people ride the bus in this neighborhood each day to get to work than 98.2% of U.S. neighborhoods.
Finally, in the Calvert Square 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 14.4% of residents here. This is a higher proportion of walking commuters than we found in 96.9% of American neighborhoods. Get ready to put on your walking shoes if you move here!
Occupations
NeighborhoodScout's exclusive research identifies the Calvert Square neighborhood as having one of the highest concentrations of people employed in manufacturing or as laborers of any neighborhood in America. In fact, despite the loss of manufacturing jobs nationally, this neighborhood has 54.9% of its working residents employed in such fields, which is a higher proportion than 99.6% of American neighborhoods.
Car Ownership
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 Calvert Square neighborhood has a highly unusual pattern of car ownership. 55.7% of the households in this neighborhood don't own a car at all. This is more carless households than NeighborhoodScout found in 99.0% of U.S. neighborhoods.
Real Estate
96.1% of the real estate in the Calvert Square neighborhood is occupied by renters, which is nearly the highest rate of renter occupancy of any neighborhood in America.
In addition, one of the really unique and interesting things about the look and setting of the Calvert Square neighborhood is that it is almost entirely dominated by large apartment buildings, such as apartment complexes or high-rise apartments. 70.0% of the residential real estate here is classified as such. This puts this neighborhood on the map as having a higher proportion of large apartment buildings than 95.0% of all neighborhoods in America.
Diversity
Did you know that the Calvert Square neighborhood has more Arab ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 4.8% of this neighborhood's residents have Arab ancestry.
Calvert Square is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 2.5% 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 95.7% of the neighborhoods in America.
The Neighbors
How wealthy a neighborhood is, from very wealthy, to middle income, to low income is very formative with regard to the personality and character of a neighborhood. Equally important is the rate of people, particularly children, who live below the federal poverty line. In some wealthy gated communities, the areas immediately surrounding can have high rates of childhood poverty, which indicates other social issues. NeighborhoodScout's analysis reveals both aspects of income and poverty for this neighborhood.
The neighbors in the Calvert Square neighborhood in Norfolk are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 99.9% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 86.1% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 99.6% 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 Calvert Square neighborhood, 54.9% of the working population is employed in manufacturing and laborer 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 33.2% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (6.2%), and 5.6% in executive, management, and professional 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 Calvert Square neighborhood is English, spoken by 90.1% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Arabic.
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 Calvert Square neighborhood in Norfolk, VA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Arab (4.8%).
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 Calvert Square neighborhood spend under 15 minutes commuting one-way to work (50.3% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.
Here most residents (37.1%) carpool with coworkers, friends, or neighbors to get to work. In addition, quite a number also drive alone in a private automobile to get to work (30.5%) and 18.0% of residents also ride the bus for their daily commute. Despite relying on the automobile to get to work, residents of this neighborhood share the ride more than most neighborhoods, reducing traffic, pollution, and saving money.
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.
