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.
The Wells / Sherwood Farms median real estate price is $298,115, which is more expensive than 44.4% of the neighborhoods in Georgia and 40.1% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in The Wells / Sherwood Farms is currently $2,523, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. The average rental cost in this neighborhood is higher than 64.9% of the neighborhoods in Georgia.
The Wells / Sherwood Farms is a suburban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Stone Mountain, Georgia.
The Wells / Sherwood Farms real estate is primarily made up of medium sized (three or four bedroom) to small (studio to two bedroom) single-family homes and townhomes. Most of the residential real estate is owner occupied. Many of the residences in the The Wells / Sherwood Farms neighborhood are established but not old, having been built between 1970 and 1999. A number of residences were also built between 2000 and the present.
Home and apartment vacancy rates are 9.6% in The Wells / Sherwood Farms. NeighborhoodScout analysis shows that this rate is lower than 40.3% of the neighborhoods in the nation, approximately near the middle range for vacancies.
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 Stone Mountain, the The Wells / Sherwood Farms neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
People
Of note is NeighborhoodScout's research finding that the The Wells / Sherwood Farms neighborhood has some of the lowest rates of children living in poverty of any neighborhood in the United States. In a nation where approximately 1 in 4 children are living in poverty, the The Wells / Sherwood Farms community truly stands out from the rest in this regard.
In addition, single parenting is hard. But you don't have to tell the The Wells / Sherwood Farms neighborhood about it; they already know. 18.5% of this neighborhood's households are run by single mothers, which is a higher concentration than NeighborhoodScout found in 96.0% 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 The Wells / Sherwood Farms 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, 85.6% of the residential real estate here was built in this one time period.
Occupations
From major sales accounts to fast-food workers, sales and service employees are often the backbone of the local economy. In the The Wells / Sherwood Farms neighborhood, they truly stand out. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis identifies this neighborhood as having a higher percentage of sales and service workers than 96.7% of all American neighborhoods.
Diversity
Did you know that the The Wells / Sherwood Farms neighborhood has more Jamaican and Haitian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 23.5% of this neighborhood's residents have Jamaican ancestry and 10.6% have Haitian ancestry.
The Wells / Sherwood Farms is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 5.4% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak African languages at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 98.8% of the neighborhoods in America.
Migration / Stability
Do you like to be surrounded by people from all over the country or world, with different perspectives and life experiences? Or do you instead prefer to be in a neighborhood where most residents have lived there for a long time, creating a sense of cohesiveness? NeighborhoodScout's analysis reveals that this neighborhood stands out among American neighborhoods for the uniqueness of the mobility of its residents. In the The Wells / Sherwood Farms neighborhood, a greater proportion of the residents living here today did not live here five years ago than is found in 97.8% of U.S. Neighborhoods. This neighborhood, more than almost any other in America, has new residents from other areas.
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 The Wells / Sherwood Farms neighborhood in Stone Mountain are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 86.5% 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.
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 The Wells / Sherwood Farms neighborhood, 40.4% 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 25.1% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations (23.4%), and 11.1% 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 The Wells / Sherwood Farms neighborhood is English, spoken by 88.3% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Vietnamese, African languages and French.
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 The Wells / Sherwood Farms neighborhood in Stone Mountain, GA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Jamaican (23.5%). There are also a number of people of Haitian ancestry (10.6%), and residents who report Sub-Saharan African roots (5.9%), and some of the residents are also of Asian ancestry (5.8%), along with some Italian ancestry residents (1.2%), among others. In addition, 11.1% 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 The Wells / Sherwood Farms neighborhood spend between 45 minutes and one hour commuting one-way to work (37.8% of working residents), longer and tougher than most commutes in America.
Here most residents (65.4%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In addition, quite a number also ride the bus to get to work (6.6%) . 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.
