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.
Parkland South median real estate price is $460,966, which is less expensive than 72.1% of Washington neighborhoods and 37.9% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
The average rental price in Parkland South is currently $2,252, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. Rents here are currently lower in price than 63.7% of Washington neighborhoods.
Parkland South is a suburban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Tacoma, Washington.
Parkland South real estate is primarily made up of medium sized (three or four bedroom) to small (studio to two bedroom) single-family homes and apartment complexes/high-rise apartments. Most of the residential real estate is occupied by a mixture of owners and renters. Many of the residences in the Parkland South 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 Parkland South are 5.6%, which is lower than one will find in 62.7% of American neighborhoods. Demand for real estate in Parkland South 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 Tacoma, the Parkland South neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
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 Parkland South 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 Parkland South neighborhood unfortunately have the distinction of having, on average, a longer commute than most any neighborhood in America. 18.1% 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 99.3% of all neighborhoods in America.
Modes of Transportation
In the Parkland South neighborhood, walking to work is a real option for many. In fact, NeighborhoodScout's exclusive research reveals walking to and from work is the chosen way to commute for 12.9% of residents here. This is a higher proportion of walking commuters than we found in 96.3% of American neighborhoods. Get ready to put on your walking shoes if you move here!
Occupations
With 1.6% of employed workers living in the Parkland South neighborhood active in the military, this neighborhood has the distinction of having a higher proportion of people in the military than 95.4% of American neighborhoods. This is a major shaper of the neighborhood's culture and character.
Diversity
Did you know that the Parkland South neighborhood has more Native American ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 2.3% of this neighborhood's residents have Native American ancestry.
Parkland South is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 4.8% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Tagalog, which is the first language of the Philippine region, at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 97.9% 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 Parkland South neighborhood in Tacoma are middle-income, making it a moderate income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 50.4% of the neighborhoods in America. With 28.2% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 79.3% 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 Parkland South neighborhood, 31.6% 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 manufacturing and laborer occupations, with 29.6% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (20.0%), and 18.8% 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 Parkland South neighborhood is English, spoken by 79.4% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Tagalog (the first language of the Philippine region), Spanish and Korean.
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 Parkland South neighborhood in Tacoma, WA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (22.3%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (11.0%), and residents who report Asian roots (10.5%), and some of the residents are also of Mexican ancestry (8.9%), along with some French ancestry residents (4.4%), among others. In addition, 14.6% of the residents of this neighborhood were born in another country.
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 Parkland South neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (46.7% 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 (18.1%) who commute over an hour in each direction.
Here most residents (72.8%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In addition, quite a number also hop out the door and walk to work to get to work (12.9%) and 9.2% 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.
