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.
Harlem median real estate price is $1,351,235, which is more expensive than 84.6% of the neighborhoods in New York and 95.3% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Harlem is currently $2,935, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. Rents here are currently lower in price than 50.0% of New York neighborhoods.
Harlem is a densely urban neighborhood (based on population density) located in New York, New York.
Harlem 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 Harlem neighborhood are older, well-established, built between 1940 and 1969. A number of residences were also built before 1940.
Harlem has a 10.6% vacancy rate, which is well above average compared to other U.S. neighborhoods (higher than 65.5% of American neighborhoods). Most vacant housing here is vacant year round. This could either signal that there is a weak demand for real estate in the neighborhood or that large amount of new housing has been built and not yet occupied. Either way, if you live here, you may find many of the homes or apartments are empty.
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.
Car Ownership
American households most often have a car, and regularly they have two or three. But households in the Harlem neighborhood buck this trend. 74.2% of the households in this neighborhood don't own a car at all. This is more carless households than NeighborhoodScout found in 99.7% of U.S. neighborhoods.
Modes of Transportation
In the Harlem neighborhood, 52.0% of people ride the train to work each day. This is a very high percentage compared to most places. In fact, NeighborhoodScout's analysis reveals that this is a higher level of train ridership than in 99.6% of the neighborhoods in America.
Real Estate
What you'll find when you visit or move to this neighborhood is one of the most crowded neighborhoods in all of America. With an incredible 97,724 people per square mile, it is more densely populated than 99.6% of America's neighborhoods. Being a walkable neighborhood can help increase property values for the simple reason that people enjoy it and value it. To put it plainly, despite our love affair with the automobile, American's enjoy taking to the streets, sidewalks, paths, and courtyards of a place to get a coffee, relax, and take in the sights and sounds. And, according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive and first quantitative walkable score index, the Harlem neighborhood is one of the most walkable neighborhoods in America.
In addition, 98.0% of the real estate in the Harlem neighborhood is occupied by renters, which is nearly the highest rate of renter occupancy of any neighborhood in America.
Furthermore, one of the really unique and interesting things about the look and setting of the Harlem neighborhood is that it is almost entirely dominated by large apartment buildings, such as apartment complexes or high-rise apartments. 90.4% 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 98.3% of all neighborhoods in America.
Also of note, the Harlem 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 85.3% 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.
People
One of the unique characteristics of the Harlem neighborhood revealed by analysis is that the per capita income of residents here is lower than that found in 98.1% of the neighborhoods in America.
Diversity
Did you know that the Harlem neighborhood has more Dominican and African ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 12.5% of this neighborhood's residents have Dominican ancestry and 9.0% have African ancestry.
Harlem is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 9.6% 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 99.0% 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 Harlem neighborhood in New York are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 98.1% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 19.6% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 69.0% 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 Harlem neighborhood, 38.1% of the working population is employed in executive, management, and professional 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 25.8% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (21.2%), and 14.9% 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 Harlem neighborhood is English, spoken by 69.6% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish, French and African languages.
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 Harlem neighborhood in New York, NY, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Dominican (12.5%). There are also a number of people of Sub-Saharan African ancestry (11.6%), and residents who report African roots (9.0%), and some of the residents are also of Puerto Rican ancestry (6.2%), along with some Haitian ancestry residents (3.3%), among others. In addition, 19.7% 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 Harlem neighborhood spend between 30 and 45 minutes commuting one-way to work (41.7% of working residents), which is at or a bit above the average length of a commute across all U.S. neighborhoods.
Here most residents (52.0%) take the train to get to work. In addition, quite a number also ride the bus to get to work (9.1%) and 6.2% of residents also drive alone in a private automobile for their daily commute. This neighborhood is distinguished by the high number of residents who take the train to work each day, which can be a very good way to get to work at a lower cost and with less pollution.
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.
