Nice Areas of Town? Need for Zillow Search

[fcyolo]

Originally Posted by airjay75

Notwithstanding the fact that school demographics can be a poor proxy for neighborhood demographics, I'm not sure how school ratings are going to tell the OP much about neighborhood safety. If OP is interested in neighborhood demographics, I would suggest census.gov. If crime data, the various local PD department websites would probably be the most informative.

The children who go to the school makeup the neighborhood, farm rates reflect poverty

[airjay75]

Originally Posted by fcyolo

The children who go to the school makeup the neighborhood, farm rates reflect poverty

Whatever. I'm not going to debate you because it's pointless and I've done it before. School demographics do not always equal neighborhood demographics. Regardless, OP isn't asking about school demographics or even neighborhood demographics - he's been asking about neighborhood safety.

[fcyolo]

Originally Posted by airjay75

Whatever. I'm not going to debate you because it's pointless and I've done it before. School demographics do not always equal neighborhood demographics. Regardless, OP isn't asking about school demographics or even neighborhood demographics - he's been asking about neighborhood safety.

Ok well the demographic stats match school enrollment at least for Fairfax, Arlington and Alexandria areas. Old town is different but for the most part elsewhere it is accurate.

Redfin and many realtor sites include school ratings and search by school boundary for this reason...

[Ffxdata]

Originally Posted by fcyolo

Ok well the demographic stats match school enrollment at least for Fairfax, Arlington and Alexandria areas. Old town is different but for the most part elsewhere it is accurate.

Redfin and many realtor sites include school ratings and search by school boundary for this reason...

What you don't seem to understand is the following:

1) the OP is asking about SAFE areas. He did not ask about diversity. He did not ask about poverty. Brown people do not equal undesirable or unsafe. Poor people do not necessarily equal unsafe.

2) the school stats will show you the make up of the students within the boundaries of that school. They do not reflect the entire population of the area. There are the people who live in the area that don't have kids. This could be a huge factor considering unmarried single people or married child free couples or retirees with grown children. None of these people would be included in the school statistics. There are the people in the area who send their children to private schools and thus would not be reflected in the public school listings. I'm sure there are additional reasons why using these stats would be flawed, but this is off the top of my head.

Redfin and other sites include school information because many people are moving with kids and want to know which schools a house is zoned to. It's not so that people can tell where the people of color and poor people like. Smh

[CapnTrips]

The Trulia website provides an overlay option on their map that gives info on criminal activity in a particular area. Good for general impressions only, since the figures skew upwards around commercial centers.

[NOVA_guy]

Originally Posted by Ffxdata

What you don't seem to understand is the following:

1) the OP is asking about SAFE areas. He did not ask about diversity. He did not ask about poverty. Brown people do not equal undesirable or unsafe. Poor people do not necessarily equal unsafe.

2) the school stats will show you the make up of the students within the boundaries of that school. They do not reflect the entire population of the area. There are the people who live in the area that don't have kids. This could be a huge factor considering unmarried single people or married child free couples or retirees with grown children. None of these people would be included in the school statistics. There are the people in the area who send their children to private schools and thus would not be reflected in the public school listings. I'm sure there are additional reasons why using these stats would be flawed, but this is off the top of my head.

Redfin and other sites include school information because many people are moving with kids and want to know which schools a house is zoned to. It's not so that people can tell where the people of color and poor people like. Smh

Agreed.

It's actually extremely naive to assume school stats will give you an idea of the demographics of an area especially somewhere like Tysons, Alexandria, Arlington, etc where there's lots of young renters or first time home buyers with no kids.

If you want demographics, do it the correct way by going to the county website and looking it up. Or searching Google.

[airjay75]

Originally Posted by NOVA_guy

Agreed.

It's actually extremely naive to assume school stats will give you an idea of the demographics of an area especially somewhere like Tysons, Alexandria, Arlington, etc where there's lots of young renters or first time home buyers with no kids.

If you want demographics, do it the correct way by going to the county website and looking it up. Or searching Google.

And just to add to that, some areas of NoVA (such as the neighborhood in which I live), have a high proportion of empty nesters. Additionally, some schools draw students from multiple neighborhoods that can have quite varying demographics. There are lots of reasons why school demographics do not necessarily mirror neighborhood demographics. The website I like best for demographic information is factfinder.census.gov. You can access data from the last census as well as estimates that have been performed by the census bureau since the last census.

[fcyolo]

Crime and poverty go hand in hand but let's not get factual.

Do it by zip,

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