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.
Village Park / Hill Town median real estate price is $494,461, which is less expensive than 83.5% of California neighborhoods and 35.0% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
The average rental price in Village Park / Hill Town is currently $3,948, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. The average rental cost in this neighborhood is higher than 70.3% of the neighborhoods in California.
Village Park / Hill Town is an urban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Hercules, California.
Village Park / Hill Town real estate is primarily made up of small (studio to two bedroom) to medium sized (three or four bedroom) townhomes and apartment complexes/high-rise apartments. Most of the residential real estate is owner occupied. Many of the residences in the Village Park / Hill Town neighborhood are established but not old, having been built between 1970 and 1999. A number of residences were also built between 2000 and the present.
In Village Park / Hill Town, the current vacancy rate is 0.0%, which is a lower rate of vacancies than 100.0% of all neighborhoods in the U.S. This means that the housing supply in Village Park / Hill Town is very tight compared to the demand for property here.
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 NeighborhoodScout's exclusive exploration and analysis.
Real Estate
With a real estate vacancy rate of only 0.0%, the Village Park / Hill Town neighborhood has a lower vacancy rate than 100.0% of U.S. neighborhoods, a very elite group. Such a low vacancy rate may indicate very strong real estate demand in the neighborhood combined with some impediments to increasing supply, such as zoning or existing density of development, among other potential reasons.
In addition, most neighborhoods are composed of a mixture of ages of homes, but the Village Park / Hill Town stands out as rather unique in having nearly all of its residential real estate built in one time period, namely between 1970 and 1999, generally considered to be established, but not old housing. What you'll sense when you look around or drive the streets of this neighborhood is that many of the residences look the same because of this similarity of age. In fact, 95.8% of the residential real estate here was built in this one time period.
Furthermore, many people dream of living along a street lined with row houses or other attached homes. Such places do often have an abundance of charm. If you are one of these people, the Village Park / Hill Town neighborhood could be your paradise. With 38.8% of the homes and real estate here classified as rowhouses or other attached homes, this neighborhood brims with opportunity to find the right place for you. Only 2.0% of U.S. neighborhoods have more row houses than this neighborhood, making it one of the most interesting things about this special neighborhood.
People
Of note is NeighborhoodScout's research finding that the Village Park / Hill Town neighborhood has some of the lowest rates of children living in poverty of any neighborhood in the United States. In a nation where approximately 1 in 4 children are living in poverty, the Village Park / Hill Town community truly stands out from the rest in this regard.
Modes of Transportation
More people ride the bus in this neighborhood each day to get to work than 98.7% of U.S. neighborhoods.
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 Village Park / Hill Town neighborhood stands out for its commute length, according to NeighborhoodScout's analysis. Long commutes can be brutal. They take time, money, and energy, leaving less of you for yourself and your family. The residents of the Village Park / Hill Town neighborhood unfortunately have the distinction of having, on average, a longer commute than most any neighborhood in America. 9.7% of commuters here travel more than one hour just one-way to work. That is more than two hours per day. This percentage with two-hour + round-trip commutes is higher than NeighborhoodScout found in 95.2% of all neighborhoods in America.
Diversity
Did you know that the Village Park / Hill Town neighborhood has more Sub-Saharan African and Asian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 15.7% of this neighborhood's residents have Sub-Saharan African ancestry and 27.6% have Asian ancestry.
Village Park / Hill Town is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 9.0% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Tagalog, which is the first language of the Philippine region, 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 Village Park / Hill Town neighborhood in Hercules are upper-middle income, making it an above average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 80.4% of the neighborhoods in America. In addition, 0.0% 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 100.0% 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 Village Park / Hill Town neighborhood, 43.7% of the working population is employed in executive, management, and professional occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations, with 30.9% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (13.9%), and 11.6% in manufacturing and laborer 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 Village Park / Hill Town neighborhood is English, spoken by 53.5% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish, Tagalog (the first language of the Philippine region), French and Chinese.
Ethnicity / Ancestry
Culture is the shared learned behavior of peoples. Undeniably, different ethnicities and ancestries have different cultural traditions, and as a result, neighborhoods with concentrations of residents of one or another ethnicities or ancestries will express those cultures. It is what makes the North End in Boston so fun to visit for the Italian restaurants, bakeries, culture, and charm, and similarly, why people enjoy visiting Chinatown in San Francisco.
In the Village Park / Hill Town neighborhood in Hercules, CA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Asian (27.6%). There are also a number of people of Sub-Saharan African ancestry (15.7%), and residents who report Mexican roots (10.9%), and some of the residents are also of English ancestry (2.8%), along with some German ancestry residents (2.6%), among others. In addition, 33.8% 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 Village Park / Hill Town neighborhood spend between 45 minutes and one hour commuting one-way to work (45.0% of working residents), longer and tougher than most commutes in America.
Here most residents (49.2%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In addition, quite a number also ride the bus to get to work (19.4%) and 8.0% of residents also take the train 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.
