Gary is a tiny city located in the state of South Dakota. With a population of 242 people and just one neighborhood, Gary is the 131st largest community in South Dakota. Much of the housing stock in Gary was built prior to World War II, making it one of the older and more historic cities in the country.
When you are in Gary, you'll notice that it is more blue-collar than most other communities in America. 40.86% of Gary’s employed work in blue-collar jobs, while America averages only 27.7% that do. Overall, Gary is a city of construction workers and builders, managers, and service providers. There are especially a lot of people living in Gary who work in management occupations (17.20%), office and administrative support (12.90%), and healthcare suport services (7.53%).
Overall, Gary’s crime rate is one of the lowest in the nation, which makes a great place to live if safety is an important concern.
Residents will find that the city is relatively quiet. This is because it is not over-populated, and it has fewer college students, renters, and young children - all of whom can be noisy at times. So, if you're looking for a relatively peaceful place to live, Gary is worth considering.
As is often the case in a small city, Gary doesn't have a public transportation system that people use for their commute.
The citizens of Gary have a very low rate of college education: just 8.33% of people over 25 have a bachelor's degree or advanced degree, compared to a national average of 21.84% for all cities.
The per capita income in Gary in 2022 was $33,194, which is middle income relative to South Dakota and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $132,776 for a family of four. However, Gary contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
Gary is a somewhat ethnically-diverse city. The people who call Gary home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Gary residents report their race to be White. Gary also has a sizeable Hispanic population (people of Hispanic origin can be of any race). People of Hispanic or Latino origin account for 11.25% of the city’s residents. Important ancestries of people in Gary include German, Norwegian, Irish, English, and Swedish.
The most common language spoken in Gary is English. Other important languages spoken here include Polish and Scandinavian languages.
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.
This neighborhood has wide open spaces, few people, and lots of space to stretch out. If you like locations that fit that description, you may like this neighborhood. Based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis, with only 5 people per square mile living here, this neighborhood is less crowded than 98.3% of America.
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 5.7% of the workforce so employed, this neighborhood has a greater concentration of such workers than 97.4% of U.S. neighborhoods.
American households most often have a car, and regularly they have two or three. But households in the neighborhood buck this trend. Residents of this neighborhood must really love automobiles. NeighborhoodScout's Analysis reveals that 36.9% of the households here have four, five, or more cars. That is more cars per household than in 97.0% of the neighborhoods in the nation.
The neighborhood is a great option for families, as revealed by NeighborhoodScout's research on this neighborhood. The combination of top public schools, low crime rates, and owner-occupied single family homes, make this neighborhood among the top 6.2% of family-friendly neighborhoods in the state of South Dakota. Many other families also live here, making it easy to socialize and develop a sense of community. In addition, families here highly value education, as is reflected by the strength of the local schools.
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Norwegian and German ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 25.2% of this neighborhood's residents have Norwegian ancestry and 38.0% have German ancestry.
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 Gary are middle-income, making it a moderate income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 56.8% of the neighborhoods in America. In addition, 3.1% of the children seventeen and under living in this neighborhood are living below the federal poverty line, which is a lower rate of childhood poverty than is found in 71.0% of America'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, 38.2% 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 27.4% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (16.2%), and 12.4% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 96.5% of households. Some people also speak Spanish (2.9%).
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 Gary, SD, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (38.0%). There are also a number of people of Norwegian ancestry (25.2%), and residents who report Irish roots (7.0%), and some of the residents are also of Mexican ancestry (5.3%), along with some English ancestry residents (4.6%), among others.
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 (35.5% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (79.8%) 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 (11.7%) . In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.