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.
Optimist Park median real estate price is $251,833, which is less expensive than 80.3% of Montana neighborhoods and 69.0% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
The average rental price in Optimist Park is currently $1,037, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. Rents here are currently lower in price than 87.0% of Montana neighborhoods.
Optimist Park is a suburban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Billings, Montana.
Optimist Park real estate is primarily made up of small (studio to two bedroom) to medium sized (three or four bedroom) single-family homes and mobile homes. Most of the residential real estate is owner occupied. Many of the residences in the Optimist Park neighborhood are established but not old, having been built between 1970 and 1999. A number of residences were also built between 1940 and 1969.
Real estate vacancies in Optimist Park are 4.8%, which is lower than one will find in 67.6% of American neighborhoods. Demand for real estate in Optimist Park is above average for the U.S., and may signal some demand for either price increases or new construction of residential product for this neighborhood.
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.
Modes of Transportation
Would you like to be able to ride your bike to work? If you are attracted to the idea of getting a little exercise of the two-wheeled type while reducing your carbon footprint, bicycling to work might be the answer. But which neighborhood you live in can make this either impossible, or alternatively, a great and realistic option. NeighborhoodScout's analysis revealed that the Optimist Park neighborhood is a fantastic option for bicycle commuters, as 5.2% of commuters here do ride their bikes to and from work on a daily basis. This is a higher amount than we found in 98.3% of the neighborhoods in America.
People
Of particular note, 6.9% of the people in the Optimist Park neighborhood currently reside in a correction facility, held due to punishment for a crime.
Diversity
Did you know that the Optimist Park neighborhood has more Native American and Norwegian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 9.6% of this neighborhood's residents have Native American ancestry and 6.0% have Norwegian ancestry.
Optimist Park is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 0.7% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Native American languages at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 96.0% 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 Optimist Park neighborhood in Billings are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 79.9% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 13.6% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 57.4% 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 Optimist Park neighborhood, 37.3% 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 25.8% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations (25.1%), and 11.8% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the Optimist Park neighborhood is English, spoken by 95.4% of households. Some people also speak Italian (2.4%).
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 Optimist Park neighborhood in Billings, MT, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (21.1%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (14.1%), and residents who report Spanish roots (10.7%), and some of the residents are also of Native American ancestry (9.6%), along with some English ancestry residents (8.7%), 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 Optimist Park neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (55.6% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (79.7%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In addition, quite a number also carpool with coworkers, friends, or neighbors to get to work (10.0%) and 5.2% of residents also bicycle 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.
