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.
Belle Ellen / Gray Hill median real estate price is $199,248, which is more expensive than 44.8% of the neighborhoods in Alabama and 21.3% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Belle Ellen / Gray Hill is currently $1,402, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. Rents here are currently lower in price than 60.5% of Alabama neighborhoods.
Belle Ellen / Gray Hill is a remote neighborhood (based on population density) located in West Blocton, Alabama.
Belle Ellen / Gray Hill real estate is primarily made up of medium sized (three or four bedroom) to small (studio to two bedroom) single-family homes and mobile homes. Most of the residential real estate is owner occupied. Many of the residences in the Belle Ellen / Gray Hill 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.
Vacant apartments or homes are a major fact of life in Belle Ellen / Gray Hill. The current real estate vacancy rate here is 27.2%. This is higher than the rate of vacancies in 93.3% of all U.S. neighborhoods. In addition, most vacant housing here is vacant year round. This can sometimes be the case in neighborhoods dominated by new construction that is not yet occupied. But often neighborhoods with vacancy rates this high are places that can be plagued by a protracted vacancy problem. If you live here, you may find that a number of buildings in your neighborhood are actually 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.
Modes of Transportation
While most Americans do drive to work alone each day, the Belle Ellen / Gray Hill neighborhood stands out by having 94.2% of commuters doing so, which is a higher proportion of people driving alone to work than NeighborhoodScout found in 99.3% of all American neighborhoods.
People
The Belle Ellen / Gray Hill neighborhood is unique for having just 1.3% of adults here having earned a bachelor's degree. This is a lower rate of college graduates than NeighborhoodScout found in 98.8% of America's neighborhoods.
In addition, with a nice mix of college students, safety from crime, and decent walkability, the Belle Ellen / Gray Hill neighborhood rates highly as a college student friendly place to live, and one that college students and their parents may want to consider. NeighborhoodScout's analysis shows that it rates more highly for a good place for college students to live than 87.5% of the neighborhoods in AL. This often also means that the area has certain amenities and services geared towards college students, from undergraduates to graduate students.
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 Belle Ellen / Gray Hill neighborhood has a highly unusual pattern of car ownership. Residents of this neighborhood must really love automobiles. NeighborhoodScout's Analysis reveals that 37.1% of the households here have four, five, or more cars. That is more cars per household than in 97.1% of the neighborhoods in the nation.
Real Estate
The real estate in this neighborhood consists of more mobile homes than 95.6% of all neighborhoods in America, with 31.6% of the occupied housing here being classified as mobile homes. So if you are looking for a mobile home, or you like the look and feel of mobile home parks, this neighborhood might have the setting you desire.
In addition, this neighborhood has wide open spaces, few people, and lots of space to stretch out. If you like locations that fit that description, you may like this neighborhood. Based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis, with only 38 people per square mile living here, this neighborhood is less crowded than 91.2% of America.
Diversity
Did you know that the Belle Ellen / Gray Hill neighborhood has more French ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 12.9% of this neighborhood's residents have French ancestry.
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. More residents of the Belle Ellen / Gray Hill neighborhood live here today that also were living in this same neighborhood five years ago than is found in 97.8% 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.
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 Belle Ellen / Gray Hill neighborhood in West Blocton are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 66.2% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 51.0% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 94.4% of U.S. neighborhoods.
A neighborhood is far different if it is dominated by enlisted military personnel rather than people who earn their living by farming. It is also different if most of the neighbors are clerical support or managers. What is wonderful is the sheer diversity of neighborhoods, allowing you to find the type that fits your lifestyle and aspirations.
In the Belle Ellen / Gray Hill neighborhood, 37.4% 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 manufacturing and laborer occupations, with 29.6% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (17.7%), and 15.3% in executive, management, and professional occupations.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the Belle Ellen / Gray Hill neighborhood is English, spoken by 98.5% of households.
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 Belle Ellen / Gray Hill neighborhood in West Blocton, AL, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Irish (16.7%). There are also a number of people of English ancestry (16.6%), and residents who report French roots (12.9%), and some of the residents are also of German ancestry (4.3%), along with some Asian ancestry residents (1.4%), 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 Belle Ellen / Gray Hill neighborhood spend between 30 and 45 minutes commuting one-way to work (39.6% of working residents), which is at or a bit above the average length of a commute across all U.S. neighborhoods.
Here most residents (94.2%) 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.
