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 Clairton is $107,562, which is less expensive than 91.4% of Pennsylvania neighborhoods and 93.4% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
The average rental price in Clairton City Center is currently $1,539, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. Rents here are currently lower in price than 61.2% of Pennsylvania neighborhoods.
Clairton City Center is a suburban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Clairton, Pennsylvania.
Real estate in the City Center of Clairton, PA is primarily made up of medium sized (three or four bedroom) to small (studio to two bedroom) single-family homes and small apartment buildings. 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 relatively historic, built no later than 1939, and in some cases, quite a bit earlier. A number of residences were also built between 1940 and 1969.
Vacant apartments or homes are a major fact of life in Clairton City Center. The current real estate vacancy rate here is 22.4%. This is higher than the rate of vacancies in 89.6% 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 Clairton, the City Center neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
Modes of Transportation
Our research shows that more people carpool to work here in the Clairton City Center (22.7%) than in 95.6% of the neighborhoods in America.
Diversity
Did you know that the Clairton City Center neighborhood has more Dominican and African ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 12.1% of this neighborhood's residents have Dominican ancestry and 8.7% have African ancestry.
Clairton City Center is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 14.0% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Italian at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 99.0% of the neighborhoods in America.
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 Clairton City Center neighborhood live here today that also were living in this same neighborhood five years ago than is found in 95.3% 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
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 Clairton are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 93.3% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 24.3% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 74.7% 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 Clairton City Center neighborhood, 37.1% of the working population is employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is executive, management, and professional occupations, with 27.2% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations (26.9%), and 8.8% in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants.
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 Clairton City Center neighborhood is English, spoken by 93.5% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Italian and Spanish.
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 City Center neighborhood in Clairton, PA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Sub-Saharan African (14.8%). There are also a number of people of Dominican ancestry (12.1%), and residents who report Italian roots (11.8%), and some of the residents are also of Irish ancestry (11.0%), along with some African ancestry residents (8.7%), among others.
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 Clairton City Center neighborhood spend between 30 and 45 minutes commuting one-way to work (31.5% of working residents), which is at or a bit above the average length of a commute across all U.S. neighborhoods.
Here most residents (62.3%) 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 (22.7%) and 6.5% of residents also ride the bus 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.
