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.
Redwood Heights median real estate price is $1,025,387, which is more expensive than 59.5% of the neighborhoods in California and 89.7% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Redwood Heights is currently $3,362, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. Rents here are currently lower in price than 44.4% of California neighborhoods.
Redwood Heights is a densely urban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Oakland, California.
Redwood Heights real estate is primarily made up of small (studio to two bedroom) to medium sized (three or four bedroom) single-family homes and apartment complexes/high-rise apartments. Most of the residential real estate is occupied by a mixture of owners and renters. Many of the residences in the Redwood Heights neighborhood are older, well-established, built between 1940 and 1969. A number of residences were also built before 1940.
Real estate vacancies in Redwood Heights are 3.2%, which is lower than one will find in 78.6% of American neighborhoods. Demand for real estate in Redwood Heights is above average for the U.S., and may signal some demand for either price increases or new construction of residential product for this neighborhood.
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.
People
Think about the people you know personally. How many of them would purchase box seats to opening night at the symphony? How many of them regularly attend gallery openings, or are the first to reserve tickets to opening night at the ballet? If they're like most of us, they don't do any of these things. But if you're among an exclusive crowd of wealthy and refined patrons of the arts, then you'll feel right at home in the Redwood Heights neighborhood: a neighborhood in which more "urban sophisticates" live than 97.1% of neighborhoods across the U.S. Here, your neighbors are defined as having urbane tastes in literature, music, live theatre and the arts. They are wealthy, educated, travel in style, and live a big city lifestyle whether or not they live in or near a big city.
In addition, with more than 1.9% of residents living with a same sex partner, Redwood Heights is truly a neighborhood that stands out from the rest in this regard. In fact, exclusive analysis by NeighborhoodScout reveals that this neighborhood has a greater concentration of same sex couples than 96.5% of U.S. neighborhoods.
Modes of Transportation
In the Redwood Heights neighborhood, many people's commute means walking from the bedroom to the home office. NeighborhoodScout's analysis found that 30.1% of residents worked from home. This may not seem like a large number, but Scout's research shows that this is a higher percentage of people working from home than 96.9% of the neighborhoods in America. Often people who work from home are engaged in the creative or technological economy, such as is found in areas around Boston, and in Silicon Valley. Other times, people may be engaged in other businesses like trading stocks from home, or running a small beauty salon.
Occupations
The Redwood Heights neighborhood has a higher proportion of its residents employed as executives, managers and professionals than 95.9% of the neighborhoods in America. In fact, 70.8% of the employed people here make a living as an executive, a manager, or other professional. With such a high concentration, this truly shapes the character of this neighborhood, and to a large degree defines what this neighborhood is about.
Diversity
Did you know that the Redwood Heights neighborhood has more British and Haitian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 2.8% of this neighborhood's residents have British ancestry and 3.7% have Haitian ancestry.
Redwood Heights is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 7.3% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Vietnamese 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 Redwood Heights neighborhood in Oakland are wealthy, making it among the 15% highest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 91.3% of the neighborhoods in America. With 19.5% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 68.1% 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 Redwood Heights neighborhood, 70.8% 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 13.9% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations (8.7%), and 7.9% in government jobs, whether they are in local, state, or federal positions.
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 Redwood Heights neighborhood is English, spoken by 66.4% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Chinese, Spanish, Vietnamese and Korean.
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 Redwood Heights neighborhood in Oakland, CA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Asian (22.9%). There are also a number of people of English ancestry (7.3%), and residents who report Mexican roots (6.8%), and some of the residents are also of German ancestry (5.6%), along with some Irish ancestry residents (5.0%), among others. In addition, 22.4% 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 Redwood Heights neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (50.9% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (51.5%) 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 (8.1%) and 6.7% of residents also hop out the door and walk to work 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.
