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.
West Gate South median real estate price is $117,902, which is less expensive than 96.7% of Florida neighborhoods and 93.0% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
The average rental price in West Gate South is currently $2,479, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. Rents here are currently lower in price than 56.5% of Florida neighborhoods.
West Gate South is an urban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Lauderdale Lakes, Florida.
West Gate South 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 small apartment buildings. Most of the residential real estate is owner occupied. Many of the residences in the West Gate South neighborhood are established but not old, having been built between 1970 and 1999. A number of residences were also built between 1940 and 1969.
Vacant apartments or homes are a major fact of life in West Gate South. The current real estate vacancy rate here is 27.7%. This is higher than the rate of vacancies in 93.5% of all U.S. neighborhoods. A relatively large percentage of housing here is seasonally occupied (23.5%). This can occur in vacation areas, and occasionally it is also found in neighborhoods that are primarily filled with college students, as some apartments could be vacant when school is not in session. If you live here year round, you may find that a number of buildings in your neighborhood are actually 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 Lauderdale Lakes, the West Gate South neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
Real Estate
The West Gate South 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 90.0% 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, one of the really unique and interesting things about the look and setting of the West Gate South neighborhood is that it is almost entirely dominated by large apartment buildings, such as apartment complexes or high-rise apartments. 83.4% 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 97.2% of all neighborhoods in America.
Furthermore, most neighborhoods are composed of a mixture of ages of homes, but the West Gate South 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, 85.2% of the residential real estate here was built in this one time period.
People
The West Gate South neighborhood stands out for having an average per capita income lower than 96.8% of the neighborhoods in the United States.
Occupations
There are more people living in the West Gate South neighborhood employed as sales and service workers (61.3%) than almost any neighborhood in the country. From fast-food service workers to major sales accounts, sales and service workers make up the largest proportion of our national employment picture. But despite that size and importance nationally, this neighborhood still stands out as unique due to the dominance of people living here who work in such occupations.
Diversity
Did you know that the West Gate South neighborhood has more Haitian and Jamaican ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 29.7% of this neighborhood's residents have Haitian ancestry and 13.2% have Jamaican ancestry.
West Gate South is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 34.0% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak French at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 99.9% of the neighborhoods in America.
Migration / Stability
Do you like to be surrounded by people from all over the country or world, with different perspectives and life experiences? Or do you instead prefer to be in a neighborhood where most residents have lived there for a long time, creating a sense of cohesiveness? NeighborhoodScout's analysis reveals that this neighborhood stands out among American neighborhoods for the uniqueness of the mobility of its residents. What is interesting to note, is that the West Gate South neighborhood has a greater percentage of residents born in another country (54.2%) than are found in 98.5% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
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 West Gate South neighborhood in Lauderdale Lakes are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 96.8% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 49.1% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 93.6% 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 West Gate South neighborhood, 38.7% 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 manufacturing and laborer occupations, with 32.6% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (16.9%), and 11.8% in executive, management, and professional 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 West Gate South neighborhood is English, spoken by 51.5% of households. Other important languages spoken here include French, Spanish and Portuguese.
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 West Gate South neighborhood in Lauderdale Lakes, FL, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Haitian (29.7%). There are also a number of people of Jamaican ancestry (13.2%), and residents who report French Canadian roots (3.4%), and some of the residents are also of Puerto Rican ancestry (2.9%), along with some South American ancestry residents (2.4%), among others. In addition, 54.2% 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 West Gate South neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (32.8% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (74.4%) 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 (13.0%) and 8.2% of residents also ride the bus 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.
