Neighborhood score
How NabeWise builds a neighborhood score
A neighborhood score here is a 0–100 fit for how you live — not a single grade of the place, and not a score you can carry from Austin to another city. Six axes are scaled inside one city’s official Neighborhood Planning Areas, then weighted. SoCo, Rainey, and The Domain are search aliases, not extra polygons.
Data vintage. ACS 2024 5-year · APD Sep 2025 – Aug 2026 · OSM Aug 2026 · updated Sep 2026
The formula
For each official planning area n in Austin:
fit = (safety·ws + schools·wk + walk·ww + cost·wc + vibe·wv + commute·wj) / Σw
Each axis is 0–100 inside this city set only. Safety inverts Part I crime per 1,000 residents (percentile). Walk and vibe min–max OSM amenity density. Cost is 100 at or under your budget, then falls. Commute inverts weekday minutes to the job center you pick. Missing school data sits at 50.
Six axes, 0–100
Safety inverts Part I crime per 1,000 residents (violent + property) among these Austin areas. Downtown nightlife and visitors inflate counts; the rate is not a judgment of residents.
Schools still uses a nearby-school rating when present. Missing data sits at mid-scale; turn school weight off if you are not searching with kids.
Walk counts OpenStreetMap groceries, cafes, parks, and transit stops inside the planning area or within 800m of its centroid.
Cost is 100 when ACS median home or rent is at or under your budget, then falls as price exceeds it.
Vibe uses OSM cafe, park, restaurant, and bar density. Quiet mode inverts bar weight.
Commute is typical weekday minutes to a job center you pick (downtown, campus, tech, or the city’s equivalent). Faster is better, ranked only among Austin areas. The numbers are baked from neighborhood geography — not live traffic, not Google. Leave work on “Anywhere” to drop this axis.
Hard filters
Filters hide neighborhoods instead of reweighting them. Within budget keeps ACS median rent or home at or under your slider. On transit requires at least three OSM transit stops. Has a park requires three parks. Skip nightlife drops areas flagged for nightlife or with dense bars. A max commute uses your workplace, or the city’s primary job center if you have not picked one.
Default weights
| Mode | Safety | Schools | Walk | Cost | Vibe |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Walkable | 15 | 10 | 40 | 20 | 15 |
| Quiet streets | 30 | 15 | 10 | 35 | 10 |
| Nightlife | 15 | 5 | 25 | 20 | 35 |
| Kids in school | 25 | 35 | 15 | 20 | 5 |
Pick a workplace and commute takes 25 points; the other five axes scale to 75 so the total stays 100.
Sources
People and housing come from the U.S. Census ACS 2024 5-year (2020-2024) for Travis County tracts. Each planning area inherits the tracts whose centroid falls inside it, or the tract that contains the neighborhood centroid. Medians are household-weighted across those tracts. Where ACS suppresses a median (common for home value in renter-heavy areas), we keep the last published figure.
Safety counts APD Part I reports from Sep 2025 – Aug 2026: murder, robbery, and aggravated assault as violent; theft, burglary, and auto theft as property. Incidents join on census block group to the same tracts, then to the planning area, and are expressed per 1,000 ACS residents. Reports without a category or block group are dropped.
Walk and vibe count OpenStreetMap amenities (© OpenStreetMap contributors) tagged as supermarket/grocery/convenience, cafe, bar/pub/nightclub, park/playground, bus stop or rail station, and restaurant/fast food. A point counts if it sits inside the official polygon or within 800 meters of the polygon centroid. Snapshot 2026-08-31.
Boundaries are City of Austin Neighborhood Planning Areas (inrm-c3ee). Listings are not MLS.
311 on a neighborhood page is the last 14 days of public city service requests, mapped to the same official unit. It is not a chat feed and it is not in the fit score. Denver’s feed is DOTI (streets and transport) only. Information-only call-center rows are dropped. We do not store street addresses.
Reddit on a neighborhood page is a snapshot of public posts from that city’s subreddit whose title mentions the neighborhood name. A one-line note tags those titles (beach, food, police) — it is not a review and not a survey. It is not Nextdoor and it is not in the fit score. Removed posts are dropped. Links go to reddit.com.
ACS/APD pulled 2026-08-31. OSM pulled 2026-08-31.
Limits
A neighborhood score is not a crime prediction, a school assignment, or a listing price. ACS medians lag the market and mix all bedrooms. Police Part I mixes residents and visitors. OSM misses shops that never got tagged. Commute minutes ignore traffic, transit waits, and the job you actually have. 311 volume tracks who bothers to file, not how livable the block is. Reddit mentions whoever posted in a city subreddit — not a resident survey. Rankings never cross city lines — Hyde Park in Austin is not Hyde Park in Chicago.
Guides such as best for families freeze editorial weights so every reader sees the same list.
Common questions
Short answers for the phrase “neighborhood score.”
What is a neighborhood score?
A 0–100 fit for how you live in this city — not a grade of the neighborhood itself. Six axes (safety, schools, walk, cost, vibe, and optional commute) are ranked against other official units here, then weighted.
How is a NabeWise neighborhood score calculated?
Each axis is 0–100 inside one city. Fit is those axes times your weights, divided by the sum of weights. Default walkable weights are safety 15, schools 10, walk 40, cost 20, vibe 15. Pick a workplace and commute takes 25 points; the other five scale to 75.
Can you compare a neighborhood score across cities?
No. Hyde Park in Austin is not Hyde Park in Chicago. A 72 here is a rank inside one city’s official units, not a grade you can carry across a state line.
What data goes into the score?
Census ACS 2024 housing and people, police Part I for the city’s latest window, OpenStreetMap shops and parks inside 800 meters, and baked weekday minutes to three job centers. Not MLS, not live traffic, not Walk Score.