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 Walnut Creek South median real estate price is $834,350, which is more expensive than 45.7% of the neighborhoods in California and 85.1% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Downtown Walnut Creek South is currently $3,506, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. The average rental cost in this neighborhood is higher than 62.5% of the neighborhoods in California.
Downtown Walnut Creek South is an urban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Walnut Creek, California.
Downtown Walnut Creek South 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 Walnut Creek South neighborhood are established but not old, having been built between 1970 and 1999. A number of residences were also built between 1940 and 1969.
Downtown Walnut Creek South has a 11.2% vacancy rate, which is well above average compared to other U.S. neighborhoods (higher than 66.5% 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.
Notable & Unique Neighborhood Characteristics
Many things matter about a neighborhood, but the first thing most people notice is the way a neighborhood looks and its particular character. For example, one might notice whether the buildings all date from a certain time period or whether shop signs are in multiple languages. This particular neighborhood in Walnut Creek, the Downtown Walnut Creek South neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
Real Estate
The Downtown Walnut Creek South 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 97.0% 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.
In addition, one of the really unique and interesting things about the look and setting of the Downtown Walnut Creek South neighborhood is that it is almost entirely dominated by large apartment buildings, such as apartment complexes or high-rise apartments. 94.9% 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 98.9% of all neighborhoods in America.
Furthermore, renter-occupied real estate is dominant in the Downtown Walnut Creek South neighborhood. The percentage of rental real estate here, according to exclusive NeighborhoodScout analysis, is 84.4%, which is higher than 95.1% 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.
Modes of Transportation
In the Downtown Walnut Creek South neighborhood, 10.6% of people ride the train to work each day. This is a very high percentage compared to most places. In fact, NeighborhoodScout's analysis reveals that this is a higher level of train ridership than in 95.3% of the neighborhoods in America.
Diversity
Did you know that the Downtown Walnut Creek South neighborhood has more Iranian and Lithuanian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 6.6% of this neighborhood's residents have Iranian ancestry and 1.3% have Lithuanian ancestry.
Downtown Walnut Creek South is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 4.8% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Persian at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 99.8% 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 Downtown Walnut Creek South neighborhood in Walnut Creek are upper-middle income, making it an above average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 69.6% of the neighborhoods in America. With 32.8% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 83.8% of U.S. neighborhoods.
A neighborhood is far different if it is dominated by enlisted military personnel rather than people who earn their living by farming. It is also different if most of the neighbors are clerical support or managers. What is wonderful is the sheer diversity of neighborhoods, allowing you to find the type that fits your lifestyle and aspirations.
In the Downtown Walnut Creek South neighborhood, 59.0% 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 24.0% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations (9.6%), and 5.2% 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 Walnut Creek South neighborhood is English, spoken by 67.4% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish, Persian and Langs. of India.
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 Walnut Creek South neighborhood in Walnut Creek, CA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Mexican (15.1%). There are also a number of people of Asian ancestry (12.9%), and residents who report Irish roots (10.7%), and some of the residents are also of German ancestry (9.1%), along with some Irania ancestry residents (6.6%), among others. In addition, 31.4% 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 Downtown Walnut Creek South neighborhood spend between 30 and 45 minutes commuting one-way to work (35.5% of working residents), which is at or a bit above the average length of a commute across all U.S. neighborhoods.
Here most residents (51.7%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In addition, quite a number also take the train to get to work (10.6%) and 9.3% of residents also carpool with coworkers, friends, or neighbors 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.
