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.
Howard Park median real estate price is $1,193,368, which is more expensive than 91.6% of the neighborhoods in Florida and 91.1% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Howard Park is currently $2,815, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. Rents here are currently lower in price than 42.3% of Florida neighborhoods.
Howard Park is a suburban neighborhood (based on population density) located in West Palm Beach, Florida.
Howard Park 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 Howard Park neighborhood are relatively historic, built no later than 1939, and in some cases, quite a bit earlier. A number of residences were also built between 1940 and 1969.
Vacant apartments or homes are a major fact of life in Howard Park. The current real estate vacancy rate here is 27.5%. This is higher than the rate of vacancies in 93.4% of all U.S. neighborhoods. In addition, most vacant housing here is vacant year round. This can sometimes be the case in neighborhoods dominated by new construction that is not yet occupied. But often neighborhoods with vacancy rates this high are places that can be plagued by a protracted vacancy problem. If you live here, you may find that a number of buildings in your neighborhood are actually empty.
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 West Palm Beach, the Howard Park neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
Modes of Transportation
Would you like to be able to ride your bike to work? If you are attracted to the idea of getting a little exercise of the two-wheeled type while reducing your carbon footprint, bicycling to work might be the answer. But which neighborhood you live in can make this either impossible, or alternatively, a great and realistic option. NeighborhoodScout's analysis revealed that the Howard Park neighborhood is a fantastic option for bicycle commuters, as 14.0% of commuters here do ride their bikes to and from work on a daily basis. This is a higher amount than we found in 99.9% of the neighborhoods in America.
Occupations
There are more people living in the Howard Park neighborhood employed as sales and service workers (57.4%) than almost any neighborhood in the country. From fast-food service workers to major sales accounts, sales and service workers make up the largest proportion of our national employment picture. But despite that size and importance nationally, this neighborhood still stands out as unique due to the dominance of people living here who work in such occupations.
People
With more than 1.9% of residents living with a same sex partner, Howard Park is truly a neighborhood that stands out from the rest in this regard. In fact, exclusive analysis by NeighborhoodScout reveals that this neighborhood has a greater concentration of same sex couples than 96.4% of U.S. neighborhoods.
Diversity
Did you know that the Howard Park neighborhood has more Brazilian and Cuban ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 1.8% of this neighborhood's residents have Brazilian ancestry and 4.3% have Cuban ancestry.
Howard Park is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 2.2% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak German/Yiddish at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 96.7% 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 Howard Park neighborhood in West Palm Beach are middle-income, making it a moderate income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 46.9% of the neighborhoods in America. With 17.3% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 64.4% 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 Howard Park neighborhood, 42.6% 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 executive, management, and professional occupations, with 33.9% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (14.8%), and 8.7% 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 Howard Park neighborhood is English, spoken by 49.6% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and German/Yiddish.
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 Howard Park neighborhood in West Palm Beach, FL, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Irish (16.2%). There are also a number of people of German ancestry (15.7%), and residents who report English roots (12.5%), and some of the residents are also of Mexican ancestry (8.5%), along with some Puerto Rican ancestry residents (7.0%), among others. 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 Howard Park neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (50.6% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (62.3%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In addition, quite a number also bicycle to get to work (14.0%) and 12.4% 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.
