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.
Downtown North median real estate price is $1,122,086, which is more expensive than 92.2% of the neighborhoods in New Jersey and 92.8% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Downtown North is currently $6,045, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. The average rental cost in this neighborhood is higher than 96.8% of the neighborhoods in New Jersey.
Downtown North is a densely urban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Jersey City, New Jersey.
Downtown North 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 small apartment buildings. Most of the residential real estate is renter occupied. Many of the residences in the Downtown North neighborhood are newer, built in 2000 or more recently. A number of residences were also built between 1970 and 1999.
Real estate vacancies in Downtown North are 4.0%, which is lower than one will find in 73.4% of American neighborhoods. Demand for real estate in Downtown North 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
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 Jersey City, the Downtown North neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
Real Estate
Renter-occupied real estate is dominant in the Downtown North neighborhood. The percentage of rental real estate here, according to exclusive NeighborhoodScout analysis, is 99.0%, which is higher than 99.0% of the neighborhoods in America. If you were to buy and live in the property you bought here, you would be almost alone in doing so.
In addition, the real estate in the Downtown North neighborhood really stands out in the way it looks for a unique reason: this neighborhood has a higher proportion of apartment complexes or high-rise apartments than nearly every neighborhood in the country. Most neighborhoods are a mixture of real estate and housing types, but here it is almost entirely dominated by big apartment buildings and complexes. In fact, 94.9% of the real estate here is classified as apartment complexes or high-rise apartments, which is more than is found in 98.9% of American neighborhoods.
Modes of Transportation
If you like to ride the train to work, this neighborhood may be for you. NeighborhoodScout's research revealed that 39.2% of the Downtown North neighborhood's commuters ride the train to and from work each day, which is more than we found in 98.8% of America's neighborhoods.
Occupations
The Downtown North neighborhood has a higher proportion of its residents employed as executives, managers and professionals than 97.1% of the neighborhoods in America. In fact, 73.3% of the employed people here make a living as an executive, a manager, or other professional. With such a high concentration, this truly shapes the character of this neighborhood, and to a large degree defines what this neighborhood is about.
People
A unique characteristic about the people in the Downtown North neighborhood is that a majority of them are young, single professionals. In fact, there are more young, single professionals in this one community than 95.8% of neighborhoods in the U.S. Here you'll find an active nightlife nearby with lots of opportunities to flirt and find romance. In addition to being an excellent choice for young, single professionals, this neighborhood is also a very good choice for urban sophisticates.
Diversity
Did you know that the Downtown North neighborhood has more Dominican and Ukrainian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 5.0% of this neighborhood's residents have Dominican ancestry and 1.9% have Ukrainian ancestry.
Downtown North is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 4.8% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Russian at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 99.7% 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 Downtown North neighborhood in Jersey City are wealthy, making it among the 15% highest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 91.4% of the neighborhoods in America. With 27.3% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 78.3% 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 Downtown North neighborhood, 73.3% of the working population is employed in executive, management, and professional 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 18.3% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (5.0%), and 3.5% in manufacturing and laborer 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 Downtown North neighborhood is English, spoken by 66.1% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish, Chinese, Langs. of India and Russian.
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 Downtown North neighborhood in Jersey City, NJ, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Asian (18.3%). There are also a number of people of Italian ancestry (9.1%), and residents who report Puerto Rican roots (9.0%), and some of the residents are also of Irish ancestry (7.2%), along with some South American ancestry residents (5.2%), among others. In addition, 26.4% 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 Downtown North neighborhood spend between 45 minutes and one hour commuting one-way to work (42.0% of working residents), longer and tougher than most commutes in America.
Here most residents (39.2%) take the train to get to work. In addition, quite a number also drive alone in a private automobile to get to work (18.2%) and 7.3% of residents also hop out the door and walk to work for their daily commute. This neighborhood is distinguished by the high number of residents who take the train to work each day, which can be a very good way to get to work at a lower cost and with less pollution.
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.
