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.
Oak Forest median real estate price is $319,918, which is more expensive than 49.3% of the neighborhoods in North Carolina and 41.5% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Oak Forest is currently $1,965, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. Rents here are currently lower in price than 41.5% of North Carolina neighborhoods.
Oak Forest is an urban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Oak Forest 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 single-family homes. Most of the residential real estate is renter occupied. Many of the residences in the Oak Forest neighborhood are established but not old, having been built between 1970 and 1999. A number of residences were also built between 1940 and 1969.
Home and apartment vacancy rates are 6.3% in Oak Forest. NeighborhoodScout analysis shows that this rate is lower than 57.9% 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 Charlotte, the Oak Forest neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
People
Single parenting is hard. But you don't have to tell the Oak Forest neighborhood about it; they already know. 27.5% of this neighborhood's households are run by single mothers, which is a higher concentration than NeighborhoodScout found in 99.3% 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.
Occupations
More people work in manufacturing and as laborers here in the Oak Forest neighborhood than in 99.0% of the neighborhoods in America. Despite the loss of manufacturing jobs across the nation, this neighborhood remains a place where, compared to other parts of the country, you will find many laborers and manufacturers.
Modes of Transportation
Our research shows that more people carpool to work here in the Oak Forest (27.7%) than in 98.2% of the neighborhoods in America.
Length of Commute
Whether walking, biking, riding, or driving, the length of one's commute is an important factor for one's quality of life. The Oak Forest neighborhood stands out for its commute length, according to NeighborhoodScout's analysis. Long commutes can be brutal. They take time, money, and energy, leaving less of you for yourself and your family. The residents of the Oak Forest neighborhood unfortunately have the distinction of having, on average, a longer commute than most any neighborhood in America. 12.8% of commuters here travel more than one hour just one-way to work. That is more than two hours per day. This percentage with two-hour + round-trip commutes is higher than NeighborhoodScout found in 97.6% of all neighborhoods in America.
Diversity
Did you know that the Oak Forest neighborhood has more African and Sub-Saharan African ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 11.0% of this neighborhood's residents have African ancestry and 11.0% have Sub-Saharan African ancestry.
Oak Forest is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 0.9% 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 97.2% 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 Oak Forest neighborhood in Charlotte are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 83.9% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 28.9% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 80.0% 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 Oak Forest neighborhood, 50.8% of the working population is employed in manufacturing and laborer 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 33.4% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (9.0%), and 6.8% in executive, management, and professional 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 Oak Forest neighborhood is English, spoken by 57.5% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish, French and African languages.
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 Oak Forest neighborhood in Charlotte, NC, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Mexican (23.7%). There are also a number of people of Sub-Saharan African ancestry (11.0%), and residents who report African roots (11.0%), and some of the residents are also of Arab ancestry (1.9%). In addition, 32.4% of the residents of this neighborhood were born in another country.
Getting to Work
How you get to work – car, bus, train or other means – and how much of your day it takes to do so is a large quality of life and financial issue. Especially with gasoline prices rising and expected to continue doing so, the length and means of one's commute can be a financial burden. Some neighborhoods are physically located so that many residents have to drive in their own car, others are set up so many walk to work, or can take a train, bus, or bike. The greatest number of commuters in Oak Forest neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (29.1% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans. However, there is also a significant group of residents (12.8%) who commute over an hour in each direction.
Here most residents (45.1%) 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 (27.7%) and 6.1% of residents also hop out the door and walk to work 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.
