Buras is a very small town located in the state of Louisiana. With a population of 1,109 people and just one neighborhood, Buras is the 225th largest community in Louisiana. Buras has seen a significant amount of newer housing growth in recent years. Quite often, new home construction is the result of new residents moving in who are middle class or wealthier, attracted by jobs, a healthy local economy, or other amenities as they leave nearby or far away areas for greener pastures. This seems to be the case in Buras, where the median household income is $57,596.00.
Because occupations involving physical labor dominate the local economy, Buras is generally considered to be a blue-collar town. 43.68% of the Buras workforce is employed in blue-collar occupations, compared to the national average of 27.7%. Overall, Buras is a town of sales and office workers, farmers, fishers, or foresters, and transportation and shipping workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Buras who work in farm management occupations (25.27%), office and administrative support (22.38%), and sales jobs (21.66%).
It is a fairly quiet town 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!) Buras 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. Buras has few renters and college students. But the biggest reason it is quieter in Buras than in most places in America, is that there are just simply fewer people living here. If you think trees make good neighbors, Buras may be for you.
As is often the case in a small town, Buras doesn't have a public transportation system that people use for their commute.
The population of Buras has one of the lowest overall levels of education in the country: only 0.00% of people over 25 hold a college degree. The national average for all municipalities is 21.84%.
The per capita income in Buras in 2022 was $25,510, which is middle income relative to Louisiana, and low income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $102,040 for a family of four. However, Buras contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
Buras is an extremely ethnically-diverse town. The people who call Buras home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Buras residents report their race to be Asian, followed by White. Important ancestries of people in Buras include French, Irish, German, Swedish, and Italian.
Foreign born people are also an important part of Buras's cultural character, accounting for 40.03% of the town’s population.
The most common language spoken in Buras is English. Other important languages spoken here include Vietnamese and Mon-Khmer (Cambodian).
When you see a neighborhood for the first time, the most important thing is often the way it looks, like its homes and its setting. Some places look the same, but they only reveal their true character after living in them for a while because they contain a unique mix of occupational or cultural groups. This neighborhood is very unique in some important ways, according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive exploration and analysis.
The neighborhood has a greater percentage of children living in poverty (56.4%) than found in 96.1% of all U.S. neighborhoods. Children living in poverty is one of the challenges facing America, and the world, and in this neighborhood in particular, the problem can be considered acute.
In addition, neighborhoodScout's exclusive research revealed that 100.0% of the adult residents in the neighborhood do not have a 4-year college degree, which is a lower rate of college graduated adults than found in 100.0% of the neighborhoods in America.
The neighborhood stands out for having the majority of its residential real estate made up of mobile homes. In fact, 72.1% of the occupied real estate here are mobile homes, which is a greater proportion than is found in 99.8% of the neighborhoods in the U.S. If you like mobile homes, this might be a great neighborhood in which to look for real estate.
In addition, despite all of the residential real estate here in the neighborhood, NeighborhoodScout has discovered that much of it is vacant. In resort or second-home vacation areas, this naturally occurs because homes and apartments are seasonally occupied, and empty for a portion of the year. In non-vacation or resort areas, however, this can be an indicator of property abandonment or a weak real estate market. The vacancy rate here is 43.4%, which is higher than 98.1% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
Furthermore, if you like the look and ambience of new homes and newly built neighborhoods, you will love the neighborhood. A whopping 81.2% of the homes and other residential real estate here were built after 1999, which is a higher proportion of new homes then you will find in 97.4% of the neighborhoods in the U.S. Everything here just feels new. In fact, the concentration of newer homes here is so great that they completely dominate the landscape. In most neighborhoods, there is a mixture of ages of residential real estate, but here it is almost completely built during one time frame: 2000 through today.
It used to be that most Americans lived on the farm, or otherwise made their living from the land, the forests, or the sea. With global trade and an economy increasingly based on providing services to one another, fewer people farm, fish or harvest timber now than at any time in American history. But according to NeighborhoodScout's leading analysis, the neighborhood stands apart from most American neighborhood due to the proportion of its residents still working in these fields. With 23.0% of the workforce so employed, this neighborhood has a greater concentration of such workers than 99.8% of U.S. neighborhoods.
Regardless of the means by which residents commute, this neighborhood has a length of commute that is notable. Long commutes can be brutal. They take time, money, and energy, leaving less of you for yourself and your family. The residents of the neighborhood unfortunately have the distinction of having, on average, a longer commute than most any neighborhood in America. 15.5% of commuters here travel more than one hour just one-way to work. That is more than two hours per day. This percentage with two-hour + round-trip commutes is higher than NeighborhoodScout found in 98.8% of all neighborhoods in America.
In the neighborhood, walking to work is a real option for many. In fact, NeighborhoodScout's exclusive research reveals walking to and from work is the chosen way to commute for 10.8% of residents here. This is a higher proportion of walking commuters than we found in 95.4% of American neighborhoods. Get ready to put on your walking shoes if you move here!
Did you know that the neighborhood has more French and Asian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 13.7% of this neighborhood's residents have French ancestry and 44.8% have Asian ancestry.
is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 15.9% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Mon-Khmer, which is the dominant language of Cambodia, at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 100.0% of the neighborhoods in America.
Do you like to be surrounded by people from all over the country or world, with different perspectives and life experiences? Or do you instead prefer to be in a neighborhood where most residents have lived there for a long time, creating a sense of cohesiveness? NeighborhoodScout's analysis reveals that this neighborhood stands out among American neighborhoods for the uniqueness of the mobility of its residents. More residents of the neighborhood live here today that also were living in this same neighborhood five years ago than is found in 95.5% of U.S. neighborhoods. This neighborhood is really made up of people who know each other, don't move often, and have lived here in this very neighborhood for quite a while.
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 Buras are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 100.0% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 56.4% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 96.1% of U.S. neighborhoods.
A neighborhood is far different if it is dominated by enlisted military personnel rather than people who earn their living by farming. It is also different if most of the neighbors are clerical support or managers. What is wonderful is the sheer diversity of neighborhoods, allowing you to find the type that fits your lifestyle and aspirations.
In the neighborhood, 31.6% of the working population is employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is farming, forestry, or commercial fishing, with 23.0% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (20.4%), and 19.4% in manufacturing and laborer occupations.
Languages
The languages spoken by people in this neighborhood are diverse. These are tabulated as the languages people preferentially speak when they are at home with their families. The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 60.4% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Vietnamese and Mon-Khmer (the dominant language of Cambodia).
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 Buras, LA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Asian (44.8%). There are also a number of people of French ancestry (13.7%), and residents who report Irish roots (8.9%), and some of the residents are also of German ancestry (4.3%), along with some Swedish ancestry residents (1.6%), among others. In addition, 35.4% of the residents of this neighborhood were born in another country.
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 (57.8% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans. However, there is also a significant group of residents (15.5%) who commute over an hour in each direction.
Here most residents (70.8%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In addition, quite a number also carpool with coworkers, friends, or neighbors to get to work (18.4%) and 10.8% of residents also hop out the door and walk to work for their daily commute. In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.
