Birmingham, AL (Fountain Heights)

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.

Occupations

NeighborhoodScout's exclusive research identifies the Fountain Heights neighborhood as having one of the highest concentrations of people employed in manufacturing or as laborers of any neighborhood in America. In fact, despite the loss of manufacturing jobs nationally, this neighborhood has 64.2% of its working residents employed in such fields, which is a higher proportion than 99.9% of American neighborhoods.

People

An interesting characteristic about the Fountain Heights neighborhood is that there are more incarcerated people living here than 99.3% of neighborhoods in the U.S. The United States has the highest rate of incarceration in the world, currently with 1 out of every 100 adults in the country are incarcerated as a punishment for crimes committed. The extremely high incarceration rate of this neighborhood could mean that a prison, juvenile detention facility or other correctional facility occupies a large proportion of the neighborhood, or contains a large portion of the neighborhood's population.

In addition, one of the unique characteristics of the Fountain Heights neighborhood revealed by analysis is that the per capita income of residents here is lower than that found in 98.2% of the neighborhoods in America.

Also, the Fountain Heights neighborhood is unique for having just 7.3% of adults here having earned a bachelor's degree. This is a lower rate of college graduates than NeighborhoodScout found in 95.7% of America's neighborhoods.

Real Estate

100.0% of the real estate in the Fountain Heights neighborhood is occupied by renters, which is nearly the highest rate of renter occupancy of any neighborhood in America.

In addition, the Fountain Heights neighborhood is very unique in that it has one of the highest proportions of one, two, or no bedroom real estate of any neighborhood in America. Most neighborhoods have a mixture of home or apartment sizes from small to large, but here the concentration of studios and other small living spaces is at near-record heights. With 85.7% of the real estate here of this small size, this most assuredly is a notable feature that makes this neighborhood unique, along with just a handful of other neighborhoods in the U.S. that share this characteristic.

Furthermore, one of the really unique and interesting things about the look and setting of the Fountain Heights neighborhood is that it is almost entirely dominated by large apartment buildings, such as apartment complexes or high-rise apartments. 74.1% of the residential real estate here is classified as such. This puts this neighborhood on the map as having a higher proportion of large apartment buildings than 95.7% of all neighborhoods in America.

Car Ownership

American households most often have a car, and regularly they have two or three. But households in the Fountain Heights neighborhood buck this trend. 31.1% of the households in this neighborhood don't own a car at all. This is more carless households than NeighborhoodScout found in 97.2% of U.S. neighborhoods.