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.
Fort Ashby is a very small town located in the state of West Virginia. With a population of 1,289 people and just one neighborhood, Fort Ashby is the 141st largest community in West Virginia.
Occupations and Workforce
Unlike some towns, Fort Ashby isn’t mainly white- or blue-collar. Instead, the most prevalent occupations for people in Fort Ashby are a mix of both white- and blue-collar jobs. Overall, Fort Ashby is a town of professionals, service providers, and sales and office workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Fort Ashby who work in food service (21.44%), office and administrative support (19.41%), and healthcare (16.43%).
Setting & Lifestyle
Overall, Fort Ashby’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 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!) Fort Ashby 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. Fort Ashby has few renters and college students. But the biggest reason it is quieter in Fort Ashby than in most places in America, is that there are just simply fewer people living here. If you think trees make good neighbors, Fort Ashby may be for you.
One downside of living in Fort Ashby is that it can take a long time to commute to work. In Fort Ashby, the average commute to work is 31.32 minutes, which is quite a bit higher than the national average.
Being a small town, Fort Ashby does not have a public transit system used by locals to get to and from work.
Demographics
In Fort Ashby, just 11.32% of people have at least a bachelor's degree, which is quite a bit lower than the national average for cities and towns of 21.84%.
The per capita income in Fort Ashby in 2022 was $34,618, which is wealthy relative to West Virginia, and middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $138,472 for a family of four. However, Fort Ashby contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
The people who call Fort Ashby home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Fort Ashby residents report their race to be White. Important ancestries of people in Fort Ashby include German, English, Dutch, French, and Irish.
The most common language spoken in Fort Ashby is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Italian.
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 Fort Ashby, the neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
Modes of Transportation
While most Americans do drive to work alone each day, the neighborhood stands out by having 92.8% of commuters doing so, which is a higher proportion of people driving alone to work than NeighborhoodScout found in 98.6% of all American neighborhoods.
People
If you are planning to retire in West Virginia, this neighborhood should be on your must-see list. For many reasons, may be considered a retiree's dream neighborhood. According to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis and metrics, it's peaceful and quiet, has above average safety from crime compared to other neighborhoods in West Virginia, while also offering a diverse range of housing options. This, along with the vibrant mix of very educated seniors and other age groups who choose to live here, makes the neighborhood more retiree-friendly than 96.9% of neighborhoods in WV. If a West Virginia retirement is in your future, this neighborhood should be one of the places you visit. In addition to being an excellent choice for active retirees, this neighborhood is also a very good choice for highly educated executives and families with school-aged children.
Diversity
Did you know that the neighborhood has more German ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 39.1% of this neighborhood's residents have German 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 Fort Ashby are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 60.1% of U.S. neighborhoods. In addition, 8.7% 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 53.9% of America'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, 40.3% 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 29.1% 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 12.2% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 97.9% of households.
Ethnicity / Ancestry
Culture is the shared learned behavior of peoples. Undeniably, different ethnicities and ancestries have different cultural traditions, and as a result, neighborhoods with concentrations of residents of one or another ethnicities or ancestries will express those cultures. It is what makes the North End in Boston so fun to visit for the Italian restaurants, bakeries, culture, and charm, and similarly, why people enjoy visiting Chinatown in San Francisco.
In the neighborhood in Fort Ashby, WV, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (39.1%). There are also a number of people of English ancestry (11.1%), and residents who report Irish roots (10.9%), and some of the residents are also of Scottish ancestry (2.6%), along with some Dutch ancestry residents (2.1%), 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 (49.8% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (92.8%) 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.
