This is a small community in a single neighborhood.
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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.
Blakesburg is a tiny city located in the state of Iowa. With a population of 269 people and just one neighborhood, Blakesburg is the 423rd largest community in Iowa. Blakesburg has a large stock of pre-World War II architecture, making it one of the older and more historic cities in the country.
Occupations and Workforce
When you are in Blakesburg, you'll notice that it is more blue-collar than most other communities in America. 39.83% of Blakesburg’s employed work in blue-collar jobs, while America averages only 27.7% that do. Overall, Blakesburg is a city of sales and office workers, transportation and shipping workers, and service providers. There are especially a lot of people living in Blakesburg who work in office and administrative support (17.80%), healthcare suport services (12.71%), and sales jobs (7.63%).
And if you like science, one thing you'll find is that Blakesburg has lots of scientists living in town - whether they be life scientists, physical scientists (like astronomers), or social scientists (like geographers!). So, if you're scientific-minded, you might like it here too.
Setting & Lifestyle
Overall, Blakesburg’s crime rate is one of the lowest in the nation, which makes a great place to live if safety is an important concern.
It is a fairly quiet city because there are relatively few of those groups of people who have a tendency to be noisy. (Children, for example, often can't help themselves from being noisy, and being parents ourselves, we know!) Blakesburg has relatively few families with children living at home, and is quieter because of it. Renters and college students, for their own reasons, can also be noisy. Blakesburg has few renters and college students. But the biggest reason it is quieter in Blakesburg than in most places in America, is that there are just simply fewer people living here. If you think trees make good neighbors, Blakesburg may be for you.
Being a small city, Blakesburg does not have a public transit system used by locals to get to and from work.
Demographics
The rate of college-level education in Blakesburg is quite a bit lower than the national average among all cities of 21.84%: just 10.16% of people here over 25 have a bachelor's degree or an advanced degree.
The per capita income in Blakesburg in 2022 was $30,127, which is low income relative to Iowa, and lower middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $120,508 for a family of four. However, Blakesburg contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
Blakesburg is a somewhat ethnically-diverse city. The people who call Blakesburg home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Blakesburg residents report their race to be White, followed by Asian. Important ancestries of people in Blakesburg include English, German, Irish, Swedish, and Dutch.
The most common language spoken in Blakesburg is English. Other important languages spoken here include Italian and African languages.
Notable & Unique Neighborhood Characteristics
The way a neighborhood looks and feels when you walk or drive around it, from its setting, its buildings, and its flavor, can make all the difference. This neighborhood has some really cool things about the way it looks and feels as revealed by NeighborhoodScout's exclusive research. This might include anything from the housing stock to the types of households living here to how people get around.
Modes of Transportation
While most Americans do drive to work alone each day, the neighborhood stands out by having 91.9% of commuters doing so, which is a higher proportion of people driving alone to work than NeighborhoodScout found in 98.5% of all American neighborhoods.
People
Astoundingly, NeighborhoodScout's research reveals that this single neighborhood has a higher concentration of married couples living here than 98.4% of all U.S. neighborhoods. Whether they have school-aged children or not, married couples are the rule in the neighborhood. If you are a married couple, you may find many people here with a similar lifestyle, and perhaps common interests. But if you are single, you might not find many other singles here.
Car Ownership
Most American households own a car or other vehicle. Many own two cars or perhaps three. In the United States, it is useful to have an automobile not only for commuting, but also for shopping and getting to other services one needs. But NeighborhoodScout's analysis revealed that households in the neighborhood have a highly unusual car ownership. Residents of this neighborhood must really love automobiles. NeighborhoodScout's Analysis reveals that 38.4% of the households here have four, five, or more cars. That is more cars per household than in 97.7% of the neighborhoods in the nation.
Real Estate
Uncrowded roads, rural America and space to be the individual you are. If you like these characteristics, this neighborhood may fit you. With just 23 residents per square mile, is less crowded than 94.1% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
Diversity
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Dutch and British ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 5.9% of this neighborhood's residents have Dutch ancestry and 1.9% have British ancestry.
The Neighbors
How wealthy a neighborhood is, from very wealthy, to middle income, to low income is very formative with regard to the personality and character of a neighborhood. Equally important is the rate of people, particularly children, who live below the federal poverty line. In some wealthy gated communities, the areas immediately surrounding can have high rates of childhood poverty, which indicates other social issues. NeighborhoodScout's analysis reveals both aspects of income and poverty for this neighborhood.
The neighbors in the neighborhood in Blakesburg are middle-income, making it a moderate income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 58.5% of the neighborhoods in America. With 31.3% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 83.1% of U.S. neighborhoods.
What we choose to do for a living reflects who we are. Each neighborhood has a different mix of occupations represented, and together these tell you about the neighborhood and help you understand if this neighborhood may fit your lifestyle.
In the neighborhood, 37.3% of the working population is employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is executive, management, and professional occupations, with 26.2% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (23.2%), and 13.1% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 99.1% of households.
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 neighborhood in Blakesburg, IA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (27.8%). There are also a number of people of English ancestry (13.2%), and residents who report Irish roots (8.8%), and some of the residents are also of Dutch ancestry (5.9%), along with some French ancestry residents (4.6%), among others.
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 neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (52.4% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (91.9%) 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.
