Who lives in Central Hillside, Duluth, Minnesota

The Central Hillside's household mix follows directly from its housing, and the housing is rental. In the best-fit tract, 80.5 percent of occupied units are rented and the median gross rent is $895, against a citywide $1,037.

Three groups dominate. There are long-tenured households, some owning and many renting, in families that have been on these streets across generations. There are working-age single-person and small households, a good share of them employed in the two hospital systems on the lower shoulder or in downtown offices four minutes away, for whom the walk to work is the entire reason they are here. And there is a steady population of students and early-career renters drawn by the cheapest rents within reach of downtown.

Household sizes run small, because the stock runs small: a great deal of it is upper-lower duplex units and converted flats rather than family houses. Median household income in the tract is $35,750, which is well below the citywide figure and is the clearest single number explaining why LISC Duluth designates this a focus area and why the institutional density described above exists.

Ownership is concentrated in the single-family stock and rises noticeably as you go up the hill. The tract figures here describe the core between roughly Third and Sixth Street; above Sixth the neighborhood runs into a tract that is far more owner-occupied and higher-income, and the real gradient is smoother than any single number can show.

Who lives here next door

The rest of the guide