What do we mean by a neighborhood?
Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ® 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. Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ 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 Borough Center of McKees Rocks is $78,144, which is less expensive than 94.9% of Pennsylvania neighborhoods and 95.9% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
The average rental price in McKees Rocks Borough Center is currently $1,745, based on Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ's exclusive analysis. Rents here are currently lower in price than 50.6% of Pennsylvania neighborhoods.
McKees Rocks Borough Center is an urban neighborhood (based on population density) located in McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania.
Real estate in the Borough Center of McKees Rocks, PA 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 Borough 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.
McKees Rocks Borough Center has a 11.4% vacancy rate, which is well above average compared to other U.S. neighborhoods (higher than 68.7% of American neighborhoods). Most vacant housing here is vacant year round. This could either signal that there is a weak demand for real estate in the neighborhood or that large amount of new housing has been built and not yet occupied. Either way, if you live here, you may find many of the homes or apartments are empty.
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 Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ's exclusive exploration and analysis.
Modes of Transportation
Our research revealed that more commuters here take the bus to work (12.8% ride the bus) than 96.6% of all American neighborhoods. If you like the idea of leaving your car and home and hopping the bus to work, this might be a good neighborhood for you to consider.
Occupations
There are more people living in the McKees Rocks Borough Center neighborhood employed as sales and service workers (62.3%) than almost any neighborhood in the country. From fast-food service workers to major sales accounts, sales and service workers make up the largest proportion of our national employment picture. But despite that size and importance nationally, this neighborhood still stands out as unique due to the dominance of people living here who work in such occupations.
People
The types of households in a neighborhood can tell a lot about the character and lifestyle of those living here. Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood, above nearly every neighborhood in America, has a greater percentage of its residents living alone: 49.9%. This is a higher percent living alone than we found in 95.4% of all U.S. neighborhoods. Often residents who live alone are new arrivals to an area who are single, and often senior citizens who have lost a spouse.
Diversity
Did you know that the McKees Rocks Borough Center neighborhood has more Armenian and Hungarian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 3.6% of this neighborhood's residents have Armenian ancestry and 1.8% have Hungarian ancestry.
McKees Rocks Borough Center is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 16.2% 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 99.3% 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 Borough Center neighborhood in McKees Rocks are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵ's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 87.4% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 26.7% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 78.3% 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 McKees Rocks Borough Center neighborhood, 37.7% 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 28.1% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in executive, management, and professional occupations (20.8%), and 13.3% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
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 McKees Rocks Borough Center neighborhood is English, spoken by 97.4% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Italian and Polish.
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 Borough Center neighborhood in McKees Rocks, PA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (27.0%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (12.1%), and residents who report English roots (9.4%), and some of the residents are also of Sub-Saharan African ancestry (6.5%), along with some Italian ancestry residents (6.1%), 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 McKees Rocks Borough Center neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (50.2% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (72.8%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In addition, quite a number also ride the bus to get to work (12.8%) and 6.8% 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.
