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.
Poets Corner median real estate price is $1,196,697, which is more expensive than 71.9% of the neighborhoods in California and 93.8% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Poets Corner is currently $2,852, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. Rents here are currently lower in price than 62.8% of California neighborhoods.
Poets Corner is a densely urban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Berkeley, California.
Poets Corner real estate 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 Poets Corner neighborhood are older, well-established, built between 1940 and 1969. A number of residences were also built before 1940.
Home and apartment vacancy rates are 6.8% in Poets Corner. NeighborhoodScout analysis shows that this rate is lower than 54.8% of the neighborhoods in the nation, approximately near the middle range for vacancies.
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 Berkeley, the Poets Corner neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
Modes of Transportation
Would you like to be able to ride your bike to work? If you are attracted to the idea of getting a little exercise of the two-wheeled type while reducing your carbon footprint, bicycling to work might be the answer. But which neighborhood you live in can make this either impossible, or alternatively, a great and realistic option. NeighborhoodScout's analysis revealed that the Poets Corner neighborhood is a fantastic option for bicycle commuters, as 5.4% of commuters here do ride their bikes to and from work on a daily basis. This is a higher amount than we found in 98.4% of the neighborhoods in America.
Also, in the Poets Corner neighborhood, 16.0% of people ride the train to work each day. This is a very high percentage compared to most places. In fact, NeighborhoodScout's analysis reveals that this is a higher level of train ridership than in 96.6% of the neighborhoods in America.
Finally, more people in Poets Corner choose to walk to work each day (11.7%) than almost any neighborhood in America. If you are attracted to the idea of being able to walk to work, this neighborhood could be a good choice.
Real Estate
The Poets Corner 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 82.2% 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.
In addition, even if you drive or take transit to your place of employment, many people enjoy being able to walk in their neighborhood. What many people don't realize is that most of America's premier vacation locations are also very walkable. The Poets Corner neighborhood is among the top 5% of American neighborhoods in terms of walkability.
Diversity
Did you know that the Poets Corner neighborhood has more Brazilian and Belgian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 2.6% of this neighborhood's residents have Brazilian ancestry and 0.7% have Belgian ancestry.
Poets Corner is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 3.5% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Langs. of India at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 95.5% 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 Poets Corner neighborhood in Berkeley are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 64.5% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 21.4% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 70.9% 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 Poets Corner neighborhood, 62.5% 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 16.4% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (13.5%), and 7.6% 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 Poets Corner neighborhood is English, spoken by 75.7% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish, Langs. of India, French and Tagalog (the first language of the Philippine region).
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 Poets Corner neighborhood in Berkeley, CA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Asian (14.1%). There are also a number of people of English ancestry (12.2%), and residents who report German roots (9.6%), and some of the residents are also of Mexican ancestry (7.3%), along with some Irish ancestry residents (6.3%), among others. In addition, 22.0% 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 Poets Corner neighborhood spend between 45 minutes and one hour commuting one-way to work (29.7% of working residents), longer and tougher than most commutes in America.
Here most residents (34.3%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In addition, quite a number also take the train to get to work (16.0%) and 11.7% 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.
