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.
Crystal Woods / Essex Green Villas median real estate price is $614,405, which is more expensive than 57.7% of the neighborhoods in New Jersey and 75.2% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Crystal Woods / Essex Green Villas is currently $6,612, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. The average rental cost in this neighborhood is higher than 99.0% of the neighborhoods in New Jersey.
Crystal Woods / Essex Green Villas is a suburban neighborhood (based on population density) located in West Orange, New Jersey.
Crystal Woods / Essex Green Villas real estate is primarily made up of medium sized (three or four bedroom) to large (four, five or more bedroom) single-family homes and townhomes. Most of the residential real estate is owner occupied. Many of the residences in the Crystal Woods / Essex Green Villas neighborhood are older, well-established, built between 1940 and 1969. A number of residences were also built between 1970 and 1999.
Real estate vacancies in Crystal Woods / Essex Green Villas are 3.1%, which is lower than one will find in 79.5% of American neighborhoods. Demand for real estate in Crystal Woods / Essex Green Villas 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.
People
If you come to know the people here, you will recognize that you're in the company of one of the wealthiest communities in the nation. In fact, a mere 3.4% of America's neighborhoods are wealthier than the Crystal Woods / Essex Green Villas neighborhood. Real estate here is exceedingly well-maintained, and similarly, tends to maintain its value over time. The cars driven are mostly luxury brands like Mercedes, Audi, BMW, and Lexus. If the public schools aren't up to snuff, the residents of this neighborhood preferentially send their children to private preparatory schools. Vacation to Disney? Yes, but equally popular are summers in Europe. As one would expect in a considerably wealthy neighborhood such as this, Crystal Woods / Essex Green Villas also has one of the lowest ratings of child poverty in the nation.
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 Crystal Woods / Essex Green Villas 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 Crystal Woods / Essex Green Villas neighborhood unfortunately have the distinction of having, on average, a longer commute than most any neighborhood in America. 16.5% 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 99.0% of all neighborhoods in America.
Modes of Transportation
Our research revealed that more commuters here take the bus to work (15.7% ride the bus) than 97.5% of all American neighborhoods. If you like the idea of leaving your car and home and hopping the bus to work, this might be a good neighborhood for you to consider.
Diversity
Did you know that the Crystal Woods / Essex Green Villas neighborhood has more Eastern European and Haitian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 5.0% of this neighborhood's residents have Eastern European ancestry and 5.3% have Haitian ancestry.
Crystal Woods / Essex Green Villas is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 5.1% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak French at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 97.6% 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 Crystal Woods / Essex Green Villas neighborhood in West Orange 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 96.6% of the neighborhoods in America. In addition, 0.0% of the children seventeen and under living in this neighborhood are living below the federal poverty line, which is a lower rate of childhood poverty than is found in 100.0% of America's neighborhoods.
A neighborhood is far different if it is dominated by enlisted military personnel rather than people who earn their living by farming. It is also different if most of the neighbors are clerical support or managers. What is wonderful is the sheer diversity of neighborhoods, allowing you to find the type that fits your lifestyle and aspirations.
In the Crystal Woods / Essex Green Villas neighborhood, 64.7% 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 16.7% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in government jobs, whether they are in local, state, or federal positions (11.3%), and 11.1% in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants.
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 Crystal Woods / Essex Green Villas neighborhood is English, spoken by 66.3% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish, French, Chinese and Italian.
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 Crystal Woods / Essex Green Villas neighborhood in West Orange, NJ, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Asian (13.4%). There are also a number of people of English ancestry (9.4%), and residents who report Sub-Saharan African roots (8.8%), and some of the residents are also of Italian ancestry (6.9%), along with some German ancestry residents (6.7%), among others. In addition, 30.7% 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 Crystal Woods / Essex Green Villas neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (29.6% 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 (16.5%) who commute over an hour in each direction.
Here most residents (49.0%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In addition, quite a number also ride the bus to get to work (15.7%) and 9.1% of residents also carpool with coworkers, friends, or neighbors 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.
