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.
Brighton Heights Southeast median real estate price is $171,712, which is less expensive than 80.6% of Pennsylvania neighborhoods and 85.1% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
The average rental price in Brighton Heights Southeast is currently $1,554, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. Rents here are currently lower in price than 61.8% of Pennsylvania neighborhoods.
Brighton Heights Southeast is an urban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Brighton Heights Southeast real estate is primarily made up of small (studio to two bedroom) to medium sized (three or four 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 Brighton Heights Southeast 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.
Brighton Heights Southeast has a 9.8% vacancy rate, which is well above average compared to other U.S. neighborhoods (higher than 62.0% 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
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 Pittsburgh, the Brighton Heights Southeast neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
Modes of Transportation
Our research revealed that more commuters here take the bus to work (42.2% ride the bus) than 99.9% 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
From major sales accounts to fast-food workers, sales and service employees are often the backbone of the local economy. In the Brighton Heights Southeast neighborhood, they truly stand out. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis identifies this neighborhood as having a higher percentage of sales and service workers than 99.3% of all American neighborhoods.
Car Ownership
We Americans love our cars. Not only are they a necessity for most Americans due to the shape of our neighborhoods and the distances between where we live, work, shop, and go to school, but we also fancy them. As a result, most households in America have one, two, or three cars. But NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis shows that the Brighton Heights Southeast neighborhood has a highly unusual pattern of car ownership. 37.3% of the households in this neighborhood don't own a car at all. This is more carless households than NeighborhoodScout found in 97.9% of U.S. neighborhoods.
Real Estate
If you find historic homes and neighborhoods attractive, you love the details, the history, and the charm, then you are sure to be interested in this neighborhood. With 56.6% of the residential real estate in the Brighton Heights Southeast neighborhood built no later than 1939, and some built considerably earlier, this neighborhood has a greater concentration of historic residences than 95.8% of all neighborhoods in America. In this regard, this neighborhood truly stands out as special.
Diversity
Did you know that the Brighton Heights Southeast neighborhood has more Hungarian and Croatian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 7.9% of this neighborhood's residents have Hungarian ancestry and 2.6% have Croatian ancestry.
Brighton Heights Southeast is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 9.8% 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 97.8% of the neighborhoods in America.
The Neighbors
How wealthy a neighborhood is, from very wealthy, to middle income, to low income is very formative with regard to the personality and character of a neighborhood. Equally important is the rate of people, particularly children, who live below the federal poverty line. In some wealthy gated communities, the areas immediately surrounding can have high rates of childhood poverty, which indicates other social issues. NeighborhoodScout's analysis reveals both aspects of income and poverty for this neighborhood.
The neighbors in the Brighton Heights Southeast neighborhood in Pittsburgh are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 69.5% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 48.7% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 93.7% of U.S. neighborhoods.
A neighborhood is far different if it is dominated by enlisted military personnel rather than people who earn their living by farming. It is also different if most of the neighbors are clerical support or managers. What is wonderful is the sheer diversity of neighborhoods, allowing you to find the type that fits your lifestyle and aspirations.
In the Brighton Heights Southeast neighborhood, 48.0% 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 executive, management, and professional occupations, with 32.9% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (12.3%), and 6.7% in manufacturing and laborer occupations.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the Brighton Heights Southeast neighborhood is English, spoken by 99.3% of households. Some people also speak Italian (9.8%).
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 Brighton Heights Southeast neighborhood in Pittsburgh, PA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Irish (25.1%). There are also a number of people of German ancestry (17.3%), and residents who report Sub-Saharan African roots (8.5%), and some of the residents are also of Hungarian ancestry (7.9%), along with some English ancestry residents (5.3%), 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 Brighton Heights Southeast neighborhood spend between 30 and 45 minutes commuting one-way to work (48.3% of working residents), which is at or a bit above the average length of a commute across all U.S. neighborhoods.
Here most residents (42.2%) ride the bus to get to work. In addition, quite a number also drive alone in a private automobile to get to work (33.0%) and 7.2% of residents also carpool with coworkers, friends, or neighbors for their daily commute. The bus provides a valuable service in the Brighton Heights Southeast neighborhood of Pittsburgh by getting a lot of residents to and from work daily, reducing the costs of commuting and reducing some congestion on the roads as well.
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.
