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.
Downtown median real estate price is $307,227, which is more expensive than 58.8% of the neighborhoods in Wisconsin and 43.8% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Downtown is currently $1,308, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. Rents here are currently lower in price than 61.8% of Wisconsin neighborhoods.
Downtown is an urban neighborhood (based on population density) located in La Crosse, Wisconsin.
Downtown 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 Downtown neighborhood are newer, built in 2000 or more recently. A number of residences were also built between 1970 and 1999.
Home and apartment vacancy rates are 7.3% in Downtown. NeighborhoodScout analysis shows that this rate is lower than 52.2% of the neighborhoods in the nation, approximately near the middle range for vacancies.
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
One of the unique characteristics of the Downtown neighborhood revealed by analysis is that the per capita income of residents here is lower than that found in 98.9% of the neighborhoods in America. In a nation where 1 out of every 4 children lives in poverty, the Downtown neighborhood also stands out as being ranked among the lowest 0.0% of neighborhoods affected by this global issue.
In addition, neighborhoodScout's analysis shows that the Downtown neighborhood has a greater concentration of residents currently enrolled in college than 99.5% of the neighborhoods in the U.S. With 64.4% of the population here attending college, this is very much a college-focused neighborhood.
Also, one of the really interesting characteristics about the Downtown neighborhood is that, according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive research, it is an excellent choice in which to reside for college students. Due to its popularity among college students who already choose to live here, its walkability, and its above average safety from crime, the neighborhood is ideal for prospective or already-enrolled college students. Between semesters and during school breaks, you'll notice that the excitement here fluctuates with the college seasons. Despite the excitement however, parents of college-age children can rest easy knowing that this neighborhood has an above average safety rating. For each of these reasons, the neighborhood is rated among the top 0.7% of college-friendly places to live in the state of Wisconsin.
Real Estate
Renter-occupied real estate is dominant in the Downtown neighborhood. The percentage of rental real estate here, according to exclusive NeighborhoodScout analysis, is 95.2%, which is higher than 98.1% 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.
Occupations
The Downtown neighborhood stands out nationally for having a greater proportion of its residents active in the military than 97.9% of other U.S. neighborhoods. If you come here, you will notice military people active in their jobs, going to and from work, and in plain clothes out and about the neighborhood.
Furthermore, there are more people living in the Downtown neighborhood employed as sales and service workers (62.0%) than almost any neighborhood in the country. From fast-food service workers to major sales accounts, sales and service workers make up the largest proportion of our national employment picture. But despite that size and importance nationally, this neighborhood still stands out as unique due to the dominance of people living here who work in such occupations.
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 Downtown neighborhood. In the Downtown neighborhood, a greater proportion of the residents living here today did not live here five years ago than is found in 99.4% of U.S. Neighborhoods. This neighborhood, more than almost any other in America, has new residents from other areas.
Diversity
Did you know that the Downtown neighborhood has more Swiss and Czechoslovakian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 3.4% of this neighborhood's residents have Swiss ancestry and 0.8% have Czechoslovakian ancestry.
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 Downtown neighborhood in La Crosse are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 98.9% of U.S. neighborhoods. 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.
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 Downtown neighborhood, 38.0% 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 33.5% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations (15.3%), and 13.2% 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 Downtown neighborhood is English, spoken by 97.1% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Polish and Spanish.
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 Downtown neighborhood in La Crosse, WI, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (32.5%). There are also a number of people of Norwegian ancestry (8.9%), and residents who report Irish roots (8.7%), and some of the residents are also of Polish ancestry (5.1%), along with some Asian ancestry residents (5.0%), 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 Downtown neighborhood spend under 15 minutes commuting one-way to work (56.3% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.
Here most residents (86.0%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In addition, quite a number also hop out the door and walk to work to get to work (9.8%) . 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.
