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.
Stagecoach Dr / Mills Civic Pkwy median real estate price is $320,464, which is more expensive than 77.7% of the neighborhoods in Iowa and 42.9% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Stagecoach Dr / Mills Civic Pkwy is currently $1,840, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. The average rental cost in this neighborhood is higher than 96.7% of the neighborhoods in Iowa.
Stagecoach Dr / Mills Civic Pkwy is a suburban neighborhood (based on population density) located in West Des Moines, Iowa.
Stagecoach Dr / Mills Civic Pkwy 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 owner occupied. Many of the residences in the Stagecoach Dr / Mills Civic Pkwy neighborhood are newer, built in 2000 or more recently. A number of residences were also built between 1970 and 1999.
Stagecoach Dr / Mills Civic Pkwy has a 11.7% vacancy rate, which is well above average compared to other U.S. neighborhoods (higher than 68.4% 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 West Des Moines, the Stagecoach Dr / Mills Civic Pkwy neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
Real Estate
Homes built from 2000 through today make up a higher proportion of the Stagecoach Dr / Mills Civic Pkwy neighborhood's real estate landscape than 98.4% of the neighborhoods in America. When you are driving around this neighborhood, you'll notice right away that it is one of the newest built of any, with the smell of fresh paint, and the look of young landscaping nearly everywhere you look. In fact, 87.0% of the residential real estate here is classified as newer. In fact, the concentration of newer homes here is so great that they completely dominate the landscape. In most neighborhoods, there is a mixture of ages of residential real estate, but here it is almost completely built during one time frame: 2000 through today.
People
The rate of college educated adults in the Stagecoach Dr / Mills Civic Pkwy neighborhood is a unique characteristic of the neighborhood. 74.5% of adults here have received at least a 4-year bachelor's degree, compared to the average neighborhood in America, which has 34.3% of the adults with a bachelor's degree. The rate here is higher than NeighborhoodScout found in 95.9% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
In addition, the Stagecoach Dr / Mills Civic Pkwy neighborhood stands out within Iowa for its college student friendly environment. NeighborhoodScout's analysis reveals that this neighborhood is home to a number of college students, is relatively walkable, and above average in safety. In combination, this makes it stand out for a good place for college students to consider. Because a number of college students live here, this neighborhood may be close to a college campus and offer certain amenities nearby geared towards the student body. While it's not an environment for everyone, ambitious scholars can enjoy seasonal excitement between semesters and school breaks, and parents can rest easy knowing that the area has an above average safety rating. For each of these reasons, the neighborhood is rated among the top 9.5% of college-friendly places to live in IA.
Diversity
Did you know that the Stagecoach Dr / Mills Civic Pkwy neighborhood has more Romanian and Czechoslovakian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 2.6% of this neighborhood's residents have Romanian ancestry and 1.1% have Czechoslovakian ancestry.
Stagecoach Dr / Mills Civic Pkwy is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 4.0% 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 96.3% 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 Stagecoach Dr / Mills Civic Pkwy neighborhood in West Des Moines are upper-middle income, making it an above average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 66.5% of the neighborhoods in America. With 12.2% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 54.3% 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 Stagecoach Dr / Mills Civic Pkwy neighborhood, 67.6% 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 12.0% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (11.6%), and 8.8% in manufacturing and laborer occupations.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the Stagecoach Dr / Mills Civic Pkwy neighborhood is English, spoken by 85.0% of households. Some people also speak Langs. of India (4.0%).
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 Stagecoach Dr / Mills Civic Pkwy neighborhood in West Des Moines, IA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (24.7%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (14.1%), and residents who report English roots (12.5%), and some of the residents are also of Norwegian ancestry (10.5%), along with some Asian ancestry residents (9.9%), among others. In addition, 14.5% 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 Stagecoach Dr / Mills Civic Pkwy neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (64.1% 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 (12.3%) . 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.
