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.
Johnston West median real estate price is $374,053, which is more expensive than 84.5% of the neighborhoods in Iowa and 50.1% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Johnston West is currently $1,761, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. The average rental cost in this neighborhood is higher than 94.7% of the neighborhoods in Iowa.
Johnston West is a suburban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Johnston, Iowa.
Johnston West real estate is primarily made up of medium sized (three or four bedroom) to small (studio to two bedroom) apartment complexes/high-rise apartments and single-family homes. Most of the residential real estate is owner occupied. Many of the residences in the Johnston West neighborhood are newer, built in 2000 or more recently. A number of residences were also built between 1970 and 1999.
In Johnston West, the current vacancy rate is 0.0%, which is a lower rate of vacancies than 100.0% of all neighborhoods in the U.S. This means that the housing supply in Johnston West is very tight compared to the demand for property here.
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 Johnston, the Johnston West neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
Real Estate
This neighborhood has the distinction of having one of the lowest real estate vacancy rates of any neighborhood in America. With just 0.0% of the real estate vacant, this indicates an exceptionally strong demand for real estate in the Johnston West neighborhood, and/or an issue with creating enough supply for the demand. This could have the effect of increasing real estate prices, increasing supply to meet demand, or both.
In addition, homes built from 2000 through today make up a higher proportion of the Johnston West neighborhood's real estate landscape than 100.0% of the neighborhoods in America. When you are driving around this neighborhood, you'll notice right away that it is one of the newest built of any, with the smell of fresh paint, and the look of young landscaping nearly everywhere you look. In fact, 100.0% of the residential real estate here is classified as newer. In fact, the concentration of newer homes here is so great that they completely dominate the landscape. In most neighborhoods, there is a mixture of ages of residential real estate, but here it is almost completely built during one time frame: 2000 through today.
Modes of Transportation
While most Americans do drive to work alone each day, the Johnston West neighborhood stands out by having 97.9% of commuters doing so, which is a higher proportion of people driving alone to work than NeighborhoodScout found in 99.8% of all American neighborhoods.
People
Single parenting is hard. But you don't have to tell the Johnston West neighborhood about it; they already know. 26.9% of this neighborhood's households are run by single mothers, which is a higher concentration than NeighborhoodScout found in 99.2% 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.
In addition, of note, 69.2% 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.
Diversity
Did you know that the Johnston West neighborhood has more Sub-Saharan African and Yugoslav ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 33.9% of this neighborhood's residents have Sub-Saharan African ancestry and 2.6% have Yugoslav ancestry.
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 Johnston West neighborhood in Johnston are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 60.9% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 69.2% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 98.4% 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 Johnston West neighborhood, 51.8% of the working population is employed in executive, management, and professional occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is manufacturing and laborer occupations, with 19.2% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (15.7%), and 13.3% in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the Johnston West neighborhood is English, spoken by 82.2% of households. Some people also speak Polish (2.8%).
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 Johnston West neighborhood in Johnston, IA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Sub-Saharan African (33.9%). There are also a number of people of German ancestry (16.9%), and residents who report Norwegian roots (7.3%), and some of the residents are also of English ancestry (5.1%), along with some Irish ancestry residents (4.6%), among others. In addition, 11.3% 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 Johnston West neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (46.7% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (97.9%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. 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.
