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.
Merriman Valley East median real estate price is $229,239, which is more expensive than 51.8% of the neighborhoods in Ohio and 26.6% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Merriman Valley East is currently $1,680, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. The average rental cost in this neighborhood is higher than 70.6% of the neighborhoods in Ohio.
Merriman Valley East is a suburban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Akron, Ohio.
Merriman Valley East real estate is primarily made up of medium sized (three or four bedroom) to small (studio to two bedroom) apartment complexes/high-rise apartments and single-family homes. Most of the residential real estate is occupied by a mixture of owners and renters. Many of the residences in the Merriman Valley East neighborhood are established but not old, having been built between 1970 and 1999. A number of residences were also built between 2000 and the present.
In Merriman Valley East, the current vacancy rate is 1.6%, which is a lower rate of vacancies than 88.9% of all neighborhoods in the U.S. This means that the housing supply in Merriman Valley East is very tight compared to the demand for property here.
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 Akron, the Merriman Valley East neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
Modes of Transportation
Our research reveals that 95.9% of commuters who live in the Merriman Valley East neighborhood get to work each day by driving alone in their automobiles, which is a higher proportion than 99.6% of U.S. neighborhoods.
Occupations
There are more people living in the Merriman Valley East neighborhood employed as sales and service workers (51.9%) 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.
Migration / Stability
Some neighborhoods have more internal cohesiveness than others. While other neighborhoods feel like a collection of strangers who just happen to live near each other. Sometimes this comes down to not only the personalities of the people in a place, but how long people have been together in that neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research has revealed some interesting things about the rootedness of people in the Merriman Valley East neighborhood. More residents of the Merriman Valley East neighborhood live here today that also were living in this same neighborhood five years ago than is found in 98.3% of U.S. neighborhoods. This neighborhood is really made up of people who know each other, don't move often, and have lived here in this very neighborhood for quite a while.
Diversity
Did you know that the Merriman Valley East neighborhood has more Iranian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 0.8% of this neighborhood's residents have Iranian ancestry.
Merriman Valley East is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 3.5% 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 97.6% 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 Merriman Valley East neighborhood in Akron are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 73.7% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 35.3% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 85.9% 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 Merriman Valley East neighborhood, 48.1% 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 45.6% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (3.6%), and 2.7% 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 Merriman Valley East neighborhood is English, spoken by 98.5% of households. Other important languages spoken here include African languages and Polish.
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 Merriman Valley East neighborhood in Akron, OH, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (10.9%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (8.9%), and residents who report English roots (4.5%), and some of the residents are also of Italian ancestry (3.7%), along with some Hungarian ancestry residents (1.6%), among others.
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 Merriman Valley East neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (58.1% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (95.9%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. 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.
