Buffalo, NY

ZIP code 14215 is assigned to Buffalo, NY, and falls within Erie County. Like every US postal code, it began as a mail-routing device rather than a geographic boundary — the US Postal Service groups delivery routes under a single code so carriers and sorting equipment can process mail efficiently. Today it also serves as a practical shorthand for the area itself: roughly 42,813 people live inside it.

At 8,989 residents per square mile spread over 4.763 square miles, 14215 reads as a densely built-up area. It is a populous postal code, and density shapes almost everything else on this page — how people get to work, whether they own or rent, and what housing costs.

Household earnings are well below the national median. At $43,326, 14215 ranks among the lower-income postal codes, ahead of 9% of them. The US median for comparison is $70,109. Bear in mind that median income describes the midpoint household, not the average — it is not pulled upward by a handful of very high earners the way a mean would be.

Housing in 14215 costs well below the national median. A typical home is valued at $102,800 against a US median of $207,500, and median gross rent runs $993 a month. The split between owning and renting is fairly even at 47.7% owner-occupied, which tends to indicate a mix of housing types rather than one dominant form.

The building stock is dominated by detached single-family houses, which account for 58.8% of housing units here. The median construction year is 1938, making the housing here largely pre-war.

The population skews younger than the country as a whole, with a median age of 31.6 against 42 nationally. The average household holds 2.5 people, and 58.2% are family households.

Getting to work takes 22.5 minutes on average one way. The dominant mode is drove alone at 61.4% of workers, while 13.2% take public transit. Commute patterns are one of the better proxies for how a place actually functions day to day.

Beyond addressing mail, 14215 does a lot of quiet administrative work. Retailers use it to calculate shipping and sales tax at checkout. Insurers use it to set premiums, since risk profiles vary geographically. Employers and marketers use it to define service areas. Government agencies use it to route benefits and organise reporting. If you have ever been asked for a postal code by a form that clearly does not intend to send you anything, this is why.

For anyone weighing a move, 14215 offers a compact profile of Buffalo: 42,813 residents, a median household income of $43,326, 19.0% of adults holding a bachelor's degree or higher, and an unemployment rate of 7.8%. A handful of figures like these answer more relocation questions than most neighbourhood guides do.

One caution worth repeating: a postal code is not a neighbourhood. 14215 may cover parts of several distinct areas, and a single neighbourhood in Buffalo may be split across more than one code. Boundaries also shift as USPS adjusts delivery routes. Treat the figures here as describing a delivery area, which is what they actually measure.