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.
Bala median real estate price is $499,363, which is more expensive than 81.5% of the neighborhoods in Pennsylvania and 64.3% of the neighborhoods in the U.S.
The average rental price in Bala is currently $3,058, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. The average rental cost in this neighborhood is higher than 91.7% of the neighborhoods in Pennsylvania.
Bala is a suburban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania.
Bala 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 Bala 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 6.7% in Bala. NeighborhoodScout analysis shows that this rate is lower than 55.8% 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 Bala Cynwyd, the Bala neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
Modes of Transportation
A unique way of commuting is simply not to. And in the Bala neighborhood, analysis shows that 31.0% of the residents work from home, avoiding a commute altogether. This may not seem like a large number, but it is a higher proportion of people working from home than is found in 97.4% of the neighborhoods in the United States. One thing NeighborhoodScout's research reveals is that the wealthier and/or more isolated the neighborhood, the greater the proportion of residents who choose to work from home.
People
If knowledge is power, then imagine the cumulative power of one neighborhood where many of the adults have earned an advanced degree, such as a Masters, law degree, medical degree, or even a Ph.D. This is certainly the case in the Bala neighborhood, where 38.0% have earned an advanced degree. Compare that to the average neighborhood in America, where just 13.4% of adults have completed a post-graduate degree, and you can see why this neighborhood is a stand out. In fact, this neighborhood has a higher rate of adults with an advanced degree than 96.4% of the neighborhoods in America.
Diversity
Did you know that the Bala neighborhood has more Russian and Eastern European ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 10.6% of this neighborhood's residents have Russian ancestry and 3.6% have Eastern European ancestry.
Bala is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 3.5% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak African languages at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 97.6% 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 Bala neighborhood in Bala Cynwyd are upper-middle income, making it an above average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 75.4% of the neighborhoods in America. In addition, 1.4% of the children seventeen and under living in this neighborhood are living below the federal poverty line, which is a lower rate of childhood poverty than is found in 77.4% of America'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 Bala neighborhood, 63.2% 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 19.3% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (9.9%), 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 Bala neighborhood is English, spoken by 81.1% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Polish, African languages, French and Langs. of India.
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 Bala neighborhood in Bala Cynwyd, PA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Russian (10.6%). There are also a number of people of English ancestry (8.4%), and residents who report Italian roots (6.9%), and some of the residents are also of German ancestry (6.7%), along with some Asian ancestry residents (6.2%), among others. In addition, 10.7% 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 Bala neighborhood spend between 30 and 45 minutes commuting one-way to work (43.0% of working residents), which is at or a bit above the average length of a commute across all U.S. neighborhoods.
Here most residents (56.9%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. 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.
