This is a small community in a single neighborhood.
As throughout the site, some neighborhood-level data are reserved for subscribers.
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.
Fosston is a very small city located in the state of Minnesota. With a population of 1,399 people and just one neighborhood, Fosston is the 363rd largest community in Minnesota.
Occupations and Workforce
Unlike some cities, Fosston isn’t mainly white- or blue-collar. Instead, the most prevalent occupations for people in Fosston are a mix of both white- and blue-collar jobs. Overall, Fosston is a city of service providers, sales and office workers, and production and manufacturing workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Fosston who work in office and administrative support (10.51%), sales jobs (9.53%), and healthcare suport services (9.14%).
Setting & Lifestyle
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!) Fosston 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. Fosston has few renters and college students. But the biggest reason it is quieter in Fosston than in most places in America, is that there are just simply fewer people living here. If you think trees make good neighbors, Fosston may be for you.
Compared to the rest of the country, citizens of Fosston spend much less time in their cars: on average, their commute to work is only 18.19 minutes. This also means that noise and pollution levels in the city are less than they would otherwise be.
Demographics
The population of Fosston overall has a level of education that is slightly above the US average for all US cities and towns of 21.84%. Of adults 25 and older in Fosston, 23.49% have at least a bachelor's degree.
The per capita income in Fosston in 2022 was $27,461, which is low income relative to Minnesota, and lower middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $109,844 for a family of four. However, Fosston contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
The people who call Fosston home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Fosston residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Important ancestries of people in Fosston include Norwegian, German, Swedish, Irish, and English.
The most common language spoken in Fosston is English. Other important languages spoken here include Scandinavian languages and Russian.
Notable & Unique Neighborhood Characteristics
Many things matter about a neighborhood, but the first thing most people notice is the way a neighborhood looks and its particular character. For example, one might notice whether the buildings all date from a certain time period or whether shop signs are in multiple languages. This particular neighborhood in Fosston, the neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
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 11 residents per square mile, is less crowded than 96.8% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
People
If you're planning where to retire, the neighborhood in Fosston is a great option to consider. According to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive retirement dream area analysis, it's peaceful and quiet, has above average safety ratings compared to other neighborhoods in MN, offers a wide range of housing options, and has already attracted an enviable mix of college educated seniors. This neighborhood ranks as better for retirement living than 89.3% of the neighborhoods in Minnesota. If you are considering retiring to Minnesota, this is a good neighborhood to look at.
Diversity
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Norwegian and Swedish ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 41.3% of this neighborhood's residents have Norwegian ancestry and 10.6% have Swedish ancestry.
The Neighbors
There are two complementary measures for understanding the income of a neighborhood's residents: the average and the extremes. While a neighborhood may be relatively wealthy overall, it is equally important to understand the rate of people - particularly children - who are living at or below the federal poverty line, which is extremely low income. Some neighborhoods with a lower average income may actually have a lower childhood poverty rate than another with a higher average income, and this helps us understand the conditions and character of a neighborhood.
The neighbors in the neighborhood in Fosston are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 70.6% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 20.7% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 69.8% of U.S. neighborhoods.
The old saying "you are what you eat" is true. But it is also true that you are what you do for a living. The types of occupations your neighbors have shape their character, and together as a group, their collective occupations shape the culture of a place.
In the neighborhood, 36.8% of the working population is employed in executive, management, and professional occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is manufacturing and laborer occupations, with 24.9% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (19.2%), and 16.0% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 96.8% of households.
Ethnicity / Ancestry
Boston's Beacon Hill blue-blood streets, Brooklyn's Orthodox Jewish enclaves, Los Angeles' Persian neighborhoods. Each has its own culture derived primarily from the ancestries and culture of the residents who call these neighborhoods home. Likewise, each neighborhood in America has its own culture – some more unique than others – based on lifestyle, occupations, the types of households – and importantly – on the ethnicities and ancestries of the people who live in the neighborhood. Understanding where people came from, who their grandparents or great-grandparents were, can help you understand how a neighborhood is today.
In the neighborhood in Fosston, MN, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Norwegian (41.3%). There are also a number of people of German ancestry (23.8%), and residents who report Swedish roots (10.6%), and some of the residents are also of Irish ancestry (7.5%), along with some French ancestry residents (4.0%), 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 under 15 minutes commuting one-way to work (50.3% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.
Here most residents (75.4%) 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 (9.4%) and 6.9% 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.
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.
