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.
Salishan median real estate price is $532,811, which is more expensive than 39.3% of the neighborhoods in Washington and 69.4% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Salishan is currently $1,165, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. Rents here are currently lower in price than 98.0% of Washington neighborhoods.
Salishan is an urban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Tacoma, Washington.
Salishan real estate is primarily made up of medium sized (three or four bedroom) to small (studio to two bedroom) single-family homes and townhomes. Most of the residential real estate is renter occupied. Many of the residences in the Salishan neighborhood are newer, built in 2000 or more recently. A number of residences were also built between 1970 and 1999.
In Salishan, the current vacancy rate is 2.6%, which is a lower rate of vacancies than 83.0% of all neighborhoods in the U.S. This means that the housing supply in Salishan is very tight compared to the demand for property here.
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
Whether walking, biking, riding, or driving, the length of one's commute is an important factor for one's quality of life. The Salishan neighborhood stands out for its commute length, according to NeighborhoodScout's analysis. Long commutes can be brutal. They take time, money, and energy, leaving less of you for yourself and your family. The residents of the Salishan neighborhood unfortunately have the distinction of having, on average, a longer commute than most any neighborhood in America. 29.7% 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 99.9% of all neighborhoods in America.
Modes of Transportation
Our research revealed that more commuters here take the bus to work (22.9% ride the bus) than 99.1% 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.
People
Single parenting is hard. But you don't have to tell the Salishan neighborhood about it; they already know. 23.9% of this neighborhood's households are run by single mothers, which is a higher concentration than NeighborhoodScout found in 98.6% of American neighborhoods. Further NeighborhoodScout research showed strong statistical correlations among high rates of children living in single parent households, and neighborhood crime, particularly violent crime, neighborhood poverty, and, importantly, the percentage of low weight births and rates of infant mortality.
Real Estate
Homes built from 2000 through today make up a higher proportion of the Salishan neighborhood's real estate landscape than 97.5% of the neighborhoods in America. When you are driving around this neighborhood, you'll notice right away that it is one of the newest built of any, with the smell of fresh paint, and the look of young landscaping nearly everywhere you look. In fact, 80.6% of the residential real estate here is classified as newer. In fact, the concentration of newer homes here is so great that they completely dominate the landscape. In most neighborhoods, there is a mixture of ages of residential real estate, but here it is almost completely built during one time frame: 2000 through today.
In addition, many people dream of living along a street lined with row houses or other attached homes. Such places do often have an abundance of charm. If you are one of these people, the Salishan neighborhood could be your paradise. With 23.9% of the homes and real estate here classified as rowhouses or other attached homes, this neighborhood brims with opportunity to find the right place for you. Only 4.9% of U.S. neighborhoods have more row houses than this neighborhood, making it one of the most interesting things about this special neighborhood.
Car Ownership
American households most often have a car, and regularly they have two or three. But households in the Salishan neighborhood buck this trend. 29.2% of the households in this neighborhood don't own a car at all. This is more carless households than NeighborhoodScout found in 97.0% of U.S. neighborhoods.
Diversity
Did you know that the Salishan neighborhood has more Ukrainian and Sub-Saharan African ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 3.9% of this neighborhood's residents have Ukrainian ancestry and 13.1% have Sub-Saharan African ancestry.
Salishan is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 3.0% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Mon-Khmer, which is the dominant language of Cambodia, at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 99.7% 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 Salishan neighborhood in Tacoma are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 78.1% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 34.5% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 85.2% 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 Salishan neighborhood, 35.8% of the working population is employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is executive, management, and professional occupations, with 28.0% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (20.7%), and 15.5% 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 Salishan neighborhood is English, spoken by 53.4% of households. Other important languages spoken here include French, Vietnamese, Spanish and Korean.
Ethnicity / Ancestry
Boston's Beacon Hill blue-blood streets, Brooklyn's Orthodox Jewish enclaves, Los Angeles' Persian neighborhoods. Each has its own culture derived primarily from the ancestries and culture of the residents who call these neighborhoods home. Likewise, each neighborhood in America has its own culture – some more unique than others – based on lifestyle, occupations, the types of households – and importantly – on the ethnicities and ancestries of the people who live in the neighborhood. Understanding where people came from, who their grandparents or great-grandparents were, can help you understand how a neighborhood is today.
In the Salishan neighborhood in Tacoma, WA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Asian (22.7%). There are also a number of people of Sub-Saharan African ancestry (13.1%), and residents who report Puerto Rican roots (4.4%), and some of the residents are also of Mexican ancestry (4.1%), along with some Ukrainian ancestry residents (3.9%), among others. In addition, 26.6% 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 Salishan neighborhood spend longer than one hour commuting one-way to work (29.7% of working residents), one of the longer commutes in America, which is a potential downside for residents of this neighborhood.
Here most residents (53.3%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In addition, quite a number also ride the bus to get to work (22.9%) and 8.0% 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.
