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.
Median real estate price in the City Center of Liberal is $100,607, which is less expensive than 86.5% of Kansas neighborhoods and 94.5% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
The average rental price in Liberal City Center is currently $1,043, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. Rents here are currently lower in price than 90.7% of Kansas neighborhoods.
Liberal City Center is a suburban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Liberal, Kansas.
Real estate in the City Center of Liberal, KS is primarily made up of small (studio to two bedroom) to medium sized (three or four bedroom) single-family homes and mobile homes. Most of the residential real estate is occupied by a mixture of owners and renters. Many of the residences in the City Center neighborhood are older, well-established, built between 1940 and 1969. A number of residences were also built between 1970 and 1999.
Vacant apartments or homes are a major fact of life in Liberal City Center. The current real estate vacancy rate here is 21.8%. This is higher than the rate of vacancies in 88.9% 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
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 Liberal, the City Center neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
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 Liberal City Center neighborhood stands out for its commute length, according to NeighborhoodScout's analysis. Residents of the Liberal City Center neighborhood have the pleasure of having one of the shortest commutes to work of any neighborhood in America. 79.6% of the residents have a commute time from home to work (one way) of less than fifteen minutes. This is a higher proportion of residents enjoying a short trip to work than NeighborhoodScout found in 99.6% of U.S. neighborhoods. Less time commuting means more time for other things in life.
Occupations
More people work in manufacturing and as laborers here in the Liberal City Center neighborhood than in 99.2% of the neighborhoods in America. Despite the loss of manufacturing jobs across the nation, this neighborhood remains a place where, compared to other parts of the country, you will find many laborers and manufacturers.
Furthermore, each year, fewer and fewer Americans make their living as farmers, foresters, or fishers. But the Liberal City Center neighborhood truly stands out among U.S. neighborhoods. According to exclusive NeighborhoodScout analysis, this neighborhood has a greater proportion of farmers, foresters, or fishers than 98.1% of all American neighborhoods. This is truly a unique cultural characteristic of this neighborhood.
People
NeighborhoodScout's exclusive research revealed that 97.8% of the adult residents in the Liberal City Center neighborhood do not have a 4-year college degree, which is a lower rate of college graduated adults than found in 98.6% of the neighborhoods in America.
In addition, there is an especially high percentage of incarcerated people (1.3%) living in the Liberal City Center neighborhood.
Diversity
Did you know that the Liberal City Center neighborhood has more Swiss and Mexican ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 1.7% of this neighborhood's residents have Swiss ancestry and 56.5% have Mexican ancestry.
Liberal City Center is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 68.6% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Spanish at home. This is a higher percentage than 97.2% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
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 City Center neighborhood in Liberal 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 41.1% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 89.7% 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 Liberal City Center neighborhood, 51.5% 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 22.0% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in executive, management, and professional occupations (13.4%), and 6.8% in farming, forestry, or commercial fishing.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the Liberal City Center neighborhood is Spanish, spoken by 68.6% of households. Some people also speak English (29.6%).
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 City Center neighborhood in Liberal, KS, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Mexican (56.5%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (3.4%), and residents who report German roots (2.4%), and some of the residents are also of Puerto Rican ancestry (2.0%), along with some Swiss ancestry residents (1.7%), among others. In addition, 34.2% 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 Liberal City Center neighborhood spend under 15 minutes commuting one-way to work (79.6% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.
Here most residents (68.4%) 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 (21.7%) and 7.5% 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.
