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.
Hillcrest median real estate price is $1,220,258, which is more expensive than 67.4% of the neighborhoods in California and 91.8% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Hillcrest is currently $3,351, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. Rents here are currently lower in price than 44.9% of California neighborhoods.
Hillcrest is a densely urban neighborhood (based on population density) located in San Diego, California.
Hillcrest real estate is primarily made up of small (studio to two bedroom) to medium sized (three or four bedroom) apartment complexes/high-rise apartments and single-family homes. Most of the residential real estate is renter occupied. Many of the residences in the Hillcrest neighborhood are established but not old, having been built between 1970 and 1999. A number of residences were also built between 1940 and 1969.
Real estate vacancies in Hillcrest are 4.9%, which is lower than one will find in 67.0% of American neighborhoods. Demand for real estate in Hillcrest is above average for the U.S., and may signal some demand for either price increases or new construction of residential product for this neighborhood.
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.
People
The first thing that you'll notice if you moved to this neighborhood is that an astounding 5.0% of the households are same sex couples. According to NeighborhoodScout's analysis, this is a higher proportion of same sex households than in 99.9% of the neighborhoods in America. This is one indicator that this neighborhood is likely a gay-friendly neighborhood. So if you are looking for such a neighborhood, the Hillcrest neighborhood should definitely be on your list of places to consider.
In addition, the Hillcrest neighborhood has a greater percentage of children living in poverty (89.7%) than found in 99.7% of all U.S. neighborhoods. Children living in poverty is one of the challenges facing America, and the world, and in this neighborhood in particular, the problem can be considered acute.
Occupations
The Hillcrest neighborhood has a higher proportion of its residents employed as executives, managers and professionals than 95.9% of the neighborhoods in America. In fact, 70.9% of the employed people here make a living as an executive, a manager, or other professional. With such a high concentration, this truly shapes the character of this neighborhood, and to a large degree defines what this neighborhood is about.
Diversity
Did you know that the Hillcrest neighborhood has more Arab and Lebanese ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 5.4% of this neighborhood's residents have Arab ancestry and 1.5% have Lebanese ancestry.
Hillcrest is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 3.3% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Arabic at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 97.0% 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 Hillcrest neighborhood in San Diego are upper-middle income, making it an above average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 70.8% of the neighborhoods in America. With 89.7% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 99.7% 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 Hillcrest neighborhood, 70.9% of the working population is employed in executive, management, and professional occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants, with 13.0% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (11.6%), and 4.4% 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 Hillcrest neighborhood is English, spoken by 75.5% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Arabic.
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 Hillcrest neighborhood in San Diego, CA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Mexican (21.3%). There are also a number of people of German ancestry (12.6%), and residents who report English roots (11.5%), and some of the residents are also of Irish ancestry (7.9%), along with some Italian ancestry residents (7.4%), among others. In addition, 16.2% 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 Hillcrest neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (44.0% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (69.8%) 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 (5.4%) . 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.
