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.
West Highland median real estate price is $315,615, which is more expensive than 59.0% of the neighborhoods in Michigan and 41.6% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in West Highland is currently $2,063, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. The average rental cost in this neighborhood is higher than 79.5% of the neighborhoods in Michigan.
West Highland is a rural neighborhood (based on population density) located in Highland, Michigan.
West Highland real estate is primarily made up of medium sized (three or four bedroom) to large (four, five or more bedroom) single-family homes and mobile homes. Most of the residential real estate is owner occupied. Many of the residences in the West Highland 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 8.3% in West Highland. NeighborhoodScout analysis shows that this rate is lower than 46.5% 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 Highland, the West Highland neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
Real Estate
The real estate in this neighborhood consists of more mobile homes than 97.4% of all neighborhoods in America, with 38.4% of the occupied housing here being classified as mobile homes. So if you are looking for a mobile home, or you like the look and feel of mobile home parks, this neighborhood might have the setting you desire.
In addition, owner-occupied real estate dominates the West Highland neighborhood. In fact, according to NeighborhoodScout research, the percentage of residential real estate occupied by its owner is higher here than in 95.7% of neighborhoods in America.
Modes of Transportation
While most Americans do drive to work alone each day, the West Highland neighborhood stands out by having 90.4% of commuters doing so, which is a higher proportion of people driving alone to work than NeighborhoodScout found in 96.9% of all American neighborhoods.
Diversity
Did you know that the West Highland neighborhood has more Finnish ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 1.2% of this neighborhood's residents have Finnish ancestry.
West Highland is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 12.5% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Polish at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 98.9% of the neighborhoods in America.
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 West Highland neighborhood in Highland are upper-middle income, making it an above average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 64.8% of the neighborhoods in America. With 25.9% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 76.7% of U.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 West Highland neighborhood, 42.3% 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 24.6% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (23.8%), and 9.4% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the West Highland neighborhood is English, spoken by 98.9% of households. Some people also speak Polish (12.5%).
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 West Highland neighborhood in Highland, MI, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (22.1%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (18.8%), and residents who report English roots (12.4%), and some of the residents are also of Polish ancestry (9.1%), along with some Swedish ancestry residents (3.4%), 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 West Highland neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (28.4% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (90.4%) 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.
