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.
Willow Park median real estate price is $273,155, which is more expensive than 49.4% of the neighborhoods in North Dakota and 33.0% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Willow Park is currently $1,060, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. Rents here are currently lower in price than 67.1% of North Dakota neighborhoods.
Willow Park is an urban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Fargo, North Dakota.
Willow Park real estate is primarily made up of small (studio to two bedroom) to large (four, five or more bedroom) apartment complexes/high-rise apartments and small apartment buildings. Most of the residential real estate is renter occupied. Many of the residences in the Willow Park neighborhood are newer, built in 2000 or more recently. A number of residences were also built between 1970 and 1999.
In Willow Park, the current vacancy rate is 1.9%, which is a lower rate of vacancies than 86.6% of all neighborhoods in the U.S. This means that the housing supply in Willow Park is very tight compared to the demand for property here.
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 Fargo, the Willow Park neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
People
One of the most interesting things about the Willow Park neighborhood is that it has a greater concentration of residents who live alone than most all neighborhoods in America. With 58.7% of the households here made up of people living alone, NeighborhoodScout's research reveals that this is a larger proportion of people living alone than in 98.5% of the neighborhoods in America.
Car Ownership
American households most often have a car, and regularly they have two or three. But households in the Willow Park neighborhood buck this trend. 22.8% of the households in this neighborhood don't own a car at all. This is more carless households than NeighborhoodScout found in 95.9% of U.S. neighborhoods.
Real Estate
86.1% of the real estate in the Willow Park neighborhood is occupied by renters, which is nearly the highest rate of renter occupancy of any neighborhood in America.
Diversity
Did you know that the Willow Park neighborhood has more Norwegian and Sub-Saharan African ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 29.5% of this neighborhood's residents have Norwegian ancestry and 23.8% have Sub-Saharan African ancestry.
Willow Park is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 1.9% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Russian at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 98.4% of the neighborhoods in America.
Migration / Stability
Do you like to be surrounded by people from all over the country or world, with different perspectives and life experiences? Or do you instead prefer to be in a neighborhood where most residents have lived there for a long time, creating a sense of cohesiveness? NeighborhoodScout's analysis reveals that this neighborhood stands out among American neighborhoods for the uniqueness of the mobility of its residents. In the Willow Park neighborhood, a greater proportion of the residents living here today did not live here five years ago than is found in 96.0% of U.S. Neighborhoods. This neighborhood, more than almost any other in America, has new residents from other areas.
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 Willow Park neighborhood in Fargo are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 81.3% of U.S. neighborhoods. In addition, 2.3% of the children seventeen and under living in this neighborhood are living below the federal poverty line, which is a lower rate of childhood poverty than is found in 73.6% of America'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 Willow Park neighborhood, 34.3% of the working population is employed in executive, management, and professional occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is manufacturing and laborer occupations, with 26.9% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (26.7%), and 12.1% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the Willow Park neighborhood is English, spoken by 75.4% of households. Some people also speak African languages (2.4%).
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 Willow Park neighborhood in Fargo, ND, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (30.4%). There are also a number of people of Norwegian ancestry (29.5%), and residents who report Sub-Saharan African roots (23.8%), and some of the residents are also of African ancestry (6.3%), along with some English ancestry residents (4.3%), among others. In addition, 23.6% of the residents of this neighborhood were born in another country.
Getting to Work
Even if your neighborhood is walkable, you may still have to drive to your place of work. Some neighborhoods are located where many can get to work in just a few minutes, while others are located such that most residents have a long and arduous commute. The greatest number of commuters in Willow Park neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (61.3% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (70.5%) 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 (7.7%) . 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.
