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.
Mountain Brook / Staffordshire Commons median real estate price is $341,178, which is less expensive than 70.7% of Connecticut neighborhoods and 53.4% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
The average rental price in Mountain Brook / Staffordshire Commons is currently $2,057, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. Rents here are currently lower in price than 76.7% of Connecticut neighborhoods.
Mountain Brook / Staffordshire Commons is a suburban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Wallingford, Connecticut.
Mountain Brook / Staffordshire Commons real estate is primarily made up of small (studio to two bedroom) to medium sized (three or four bedroom) single-family homes and small apartment buildings. Most of the residential real estate is occupied by a mixture of owners and renters. Many of the residences in the Mountain Brook / Staffordshire Commons neighborhood are established but not old, having been built between 1970 and 1999. A number of residences were also built before 1940.
Home and apartment vacancy rates are 7.6% in Mountain Brook / Staffordshire Commons. NeighborhoodScout analysis shows that this rate is lower than 50.6% 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 Wallingford, the Mountain Brook / Staffordshire Commons neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
People
Of note is NeighborhoodScout's research finding that the Mountain Brook / Staffordshire Commons neighborhood has some of the lowest rates of children living in poverty of any neighborhood in the United States. In a nation where approximately 1 in 4 children are living in poverty, the Mountain Brook / Staffordshire Commons community truly stands out from the rest in this regard.
Diversity
Did you know that the Mountain Brook / Staffordshire Commons neighborhood has more Romanian and Polish ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 1.3% of this neighborhood's residents have Romanian ancestry and 10.2% have Polish ancestry.
Mountain Brook / Staffordshire Commons is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 1.2% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Portuguese at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 95.7% of the neighborhoods in America.
Migration / Stability
Do you like to be surrounded by people from all over the country or world, with different perspectives and life experiences? Or do you instead prefer to be in a neighborhood where most residents have lived there for a long time, creating a sense of cohesiveness? NeighborhoodScout's analysis reveals that this neighborhood stands out among American neighborhoods for the uniqueness of the mobility of its residents. In the Mountain Brook / Staffordshire Commons neighborhood, a greater proportion of the residents living here today did not live here five years ago than is found in 96.2% of U.S. Neighborhoods. This neighborhood, more than almost any other in America, has new residents from other areas.
The Neighbors
How wealthy a neighborhood is, from very wealthy, to middle income, to low income is very formative with regard to the personality and character of a neighborhood. Equally important is the rate of people, particularly children, who live below the federal poverty line. In some wealthy gated communities, the areas immediately surrounding can have high rates of childhood poverty, which indicates other social issues. NeighborhoodScout's analysis reveals both aspects of income and poverty for this neighborhood.
The neighbors in the Mountain Brook / Staffordshire Commons neighborhood in Wallingford are upper-middle income, making it an above average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 64.9% 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.
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 Mountain Brook / Staffordshire Commons neighborhood, 34.8% of the working population is employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is executive, management, and professional occupations, with 29.2% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (25.0%), and 11.1% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the Mountain Brook / Staffordshire Commons neighborhood is English, spoken by 54.8% of households. Some people also speak Spanish (35.4%).
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 Mountain Brook / Staffordshire Commons neighborhood in Wallingford, CT, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Mexican (32.2%). There are also a number of people of Italian ancestry (14.1%), and residents who report Irish roots (12.4%), and some of the residents are also of Polish ancestry (10.2%), along with some Asian ancestry residents (8.1%), among others. In addition, 33.1% 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 Mountain Brook / Staffordshire Commons neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (29.8% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (83.7%) 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 (10.3%) . 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.
