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.
College Park median real estate price is $182,990, which is less expensive than 76.3% of South Dakota neighborhoods and 81.8% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
The average rental price in College Park is currently $1,351, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. Rents here are currently lower in price than 45.1% of South Dakota neighborhoods.
College Park is an urban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Rapid City, South Dakota.
College 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 renter occupied. Many of the residences in the College Park neighborhood are older, well-established, built between 1940 and 1969. A number of residences were also built before 1940.
College Park has a 13.7% vacancy rate, which is well above average compared to other U.S. neighborhoods (higher than 74.5% 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
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.
Modes of Transportation
If your dream is to be able to ride your bike to work each day, look no further than this unique neighborhood. With 12.7% of residents in the College Park neighborhood commuting on a bicycle to and from work daily, this neighborhood has more bicycle commuters than 99.8% of all neighborhoods in the U.S., according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis.
Also, our research shows that more people carpool to work here in the College Park (24.7%) than in 96.9% of the neighborhoods in America.
People
An interesting characteristic about the College Park neighborhood is that there are more incarcerated people living here than 99.0% of neighborhoods in the U.S. The United States has the highest rate of incarceration in the world, currently with 1 out of every 100 adults in the country are incarcerated as a punishment for crimes committed. The extremely high incarceration rate of this neighborhood could mean that a prison, juvenile detention facility or other correctional facility occupies a large proportion of the neighborhood, or contains a large portion of the neighborhood's population.
Occupations
NeighborhoodScout's exclusive research identifies the College Park neighborhood as having one of the highest concentrations of people employed in manufacturing or as laborers of any neighborhood in America. In fact, despite the loss of manufacturing jobs nationally, this neighborhood has 46.1% of its working residents employed in such fields, which is a higher proportion than 97.7% of American neighborhoods.
Diversity
Did you know that the College Park neighborhood has more Native American and Greek ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 16.2% of this neighborhood's residents have Native American ancestry and 3.5% have Greek ancestry.
College Park is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 4.6% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Native American languages at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 99.6% of the neighborhoods in America.
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 College Park neighborhood in Rapid City are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 85.5% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 42.3% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 90.4% 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 College Park neighborhood, 46.1% 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 25.3% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in executive, management, and professional occupations (16.0%), and 12.5% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the College Park neighborhood is English, spoken by 95.9% of households. Some people also speak Native American languages (4.6%).
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 College Park neighborhood in Rapid City, SD, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (20.9%). There are also a number of people of Native American ancestry (16.2%), and residents who report Irish roots (10.6%), and some of the residents are also of English ancestry (4.2%), along with some Dutch ancestry residents (4.2%), among others.
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 College Park neighborhood spend under 15 minutes commuting one-way to work (44.1% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.
Here most residents (60.5%) 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 (24.7%) and 12.7% of residents also bicycle 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.
