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.
Springfield Ave / Washington Ave median real estate price is $314,507, which is less expensive than 85.9% of New Jersey neighborhoods and 59.3% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
The average rental price in Springfield Ave / Washington Ave is currently $2,229, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. Rents here are currently lower in price than 89.4% of New Jersey neighborhoods.
Springfield Ave / Washington Ave is a densely urban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Irvington, New Jersey.
Springfield Ave / Washington Ave 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 Springfield Ave / Washington Ave neighborhood are older, well-established, built between 1940 and 1969. A number of residences were also built between 1970 and 1999.
Home and apartment vacancy rates are 6.5% in Springfield Ave / Washington Ave. NeighborhoodScout analysis shows that this rate is lower than 56.5% of the neighborhoods in the nation, approximately near the middle range for vacancies.
Notable & Unique Neighborhood Characteristics
When you see a neighborhood for the first time, the most important thing is often the way it looks, like its homes and its setting. Some places look the same, but they only reveal their true character after living in them for a while because they contain a unique mix of occupational or cultural groups. This neighborhood is very unique in some important ways, according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive exploration and analysis.
Length of Commute
Regardless of the means by which residents commute, this neighborhood has a length of commute that is notable. Long commutes can be brutal. They take time, money, and energy, leaving less of you for yourself and your family. The residents of the Springfield Ave / Washington Ave neighborhood unfortunately have the distinction of having, on average, a longer commute than most any neighborhood in America. 20.4% 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 99.6% of all neighborhoods in America.
Modes of Transportation
Our research revealed that more commuters here take the bus to work (28.2% ride the bus) than 99.5% 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.
Car Ownership
We Americans love our cars. Not only are they a necessity for most Americans due to the shape of our neighborhoods and the distances between where we live, work, shop, and go to school, but we also fancy them. As a result, most households in America have one, two, or three cars. But NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis shows that the Springfield Ave / Washington Ave neighborhood has a highly unusual pattern of car ownership. 30.0% of the households in this neighborhood don't own a car at all. This is more carless households than NeighborhoodScout found in 97.2% of U.S. neighborhoods.
Real Estate
The Springfield Ave / Washington Ave neighborhood is very unique in that it has one of the highest proportions of one, two, or no bedroom real estate of any neighborhood in America. Most neighborhoods have a mixture of home or apartment sizes from small to large, but here the concentration of studios and other small living spaces is at near-record heights. With 87.8% of the real estate here of this small size, this most assuredly is a notable feature that makes this neighborhood unique, along with just a handful of other neighborhoods in the U.S. that share this characteristic.
In addition, one of the really unique and interesting things about the look and setting of the Springfield Ave / Washington Ave neighborhood is that it is almost entirely dominated by large apartment buildings, such as apartment complexes or high-rise apartments. 77.5% of the residential real estate here is classified as such. This puts this neighborhood on the map as having a higher proportion of large apartment buildings than 96.3% of all neighborhoods in America.
Furthermore, renter-occupied real estate is dominant in the Springfield Ave / Washington Ave neighborhood. The percentage of rental real estate here, according to exclusive NeighborhoodScout analysis, is 87.8%, which is higher than 96.2% 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.
People
One of the most interesting things about the Springfield Ave / Washington Ave neighborhood is that it has a greater concentration of residents who live alone than most all neighborhoods in America. With 50.3% of the households here made up of people living alone, NeighborhoodScout's research reveals that this is a larger proportion of people living alone than in 95.8% of the neighborhoods in America.
Diversity
Did you know that the Springfield Ave / Washington Ave neighborhood has more Jamaican and Sub-Saharan African ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 11.7% of this neighborhood's residents have Jamaican ancestry and 16.6% have Sub-Saharan African ancestry.
Springfield Ave / Washington Ave is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 13.1% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak African languages at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 99.8% of the neighborhoods in America.
Migration / Stability
The freedom of moving to new places versus the comfort of home. How much and how often people move not only can create diverse and worldly neighborhoods, but simultaneously it can produce a loss of intimacy with one's surroundings and a lack of connectedness to one's neighbors. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive research has identified this neighborhood as unique with regard to the transience of its populace. What is interesting to note, is that the Springfield Ave / Washington Ave neighborhood has a greater percentage of residents born in another country (46.8%) than are found in 96.7% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
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 Springfield Ave / Washington Ave neighborhood in Irvington are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 87.0% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 42.6% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 90.5% 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 Springfield Ave / Washington Ave neighborhood, 40.5% of the working population is employed in manufacturing and laborer 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 26.3% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in executive, management, and professional occupations (19.5%), and 13.7% in clerical, assistant, and tech support 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 Springfield Ave / Washington Ave neighborhood is English, spoken by 61.6% of households. Other important languages spoken here include French, African languages and Spanish.
Ethnicity / Ancestry
Culture is the shared learned behavior of peoples. Undeniably, different ethnicities and ancestries have different cultural traditions, and as a result, neighborhoods with concentrations of residents of one or another ethnicities or ancestries will express those cultures. It is what makes the North End in Boston so fun to visit for the Italian restaurants, bakeries, culture, and charm, and similarly, why people enjoy visiting Chinatown in San Francisco.
In the Springfield Ave / Washington Ave neighborhood in Irvington, NJ, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Sub-Saharan African (16.6%). There are also a number of people of Jamaican ancestry (11.7%), and residents who report Asian roots (6.5%), and some of the residents are also of Puerto Rican ancestry (5.4%), along with some South American ancestry residents (4.4%), among others. In addition, 46.8% 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 Springfield Ave / Washington Ave neighborhood spend between 45 minutes and one hour commuting one-way to work (27.7% of working residents), longer and tougher than most commutes in America.
Here most residents (52.2%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In addition, quite a number also ride the bus to get to work (28.2%) and 9.0% 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.
