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.
Potomac is a tiny village located in the state of Illinois. With a population of 666 people and just one neighborhood, Potomac is the 718th largest community in Illinois.
Occupations and Workforce
Because occupations involving physical labor dominate the local economy, Potomac is generally considered to be a blue-collar town. 39.78% of the Potomac workforce is employed in blue-collar occupations, compared to the national average of 27.7%. Overall, Potomac is a village of sales and office workers, professionals, and construction workers and builders. There are especially a lot of people living in Potomac who work in office and administrative support (15.99%), teaching (7.06%), and community and social services (5.95%).
Setting & Lifestyle
The overall crime rate in Potomac is one of the lowest in the US. This makes it one of the safer places to live in the country in terms of crime.
It is a fairly quiet village 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!) Potomac 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. Potomac has few renters and college students. But the biggest reason it is quieter in Potomac than in most places in America, is that there are just simply fewer people living here. If you think trees make good neighbors, Potomac may be for you.
One downside of living in Potomac is that it can take a long time to commute to work. In Potomac, the average commute to work is 32.57 minutes, which is quite a bit higher than the national average.
Potomac is a small village, and as such doesn't have a public transit system that people use to get to and from their jobs every day.
Demographics
The percentage of people in Potomac with college degrees is quite a bit lower than the national average for cities and towns of 21.84%: just 10.76% of people over 25 have a bachelor's degree or advanced degree.
The per capita income in Potomac in 2022 was $34,756, which is middle income relative to Illinois and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $139,024 for a family of four. However, Potomac contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
Potomac is a somewhat ethnically-diverse village. The people who call Potomac home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Potomac residents report their race to be White. Potomac also has a sizeable Hispanic population (people of Hispanic origin can be of any race). People of Hispanic or Latino origin account for 11.44% of the village’s residents. Important ancestries of people in Potomac include German, Irish, European, English, and Swiss.
The most common language spoken in Potomac is English. Other important languages spoken here include Tagalog and Langs. of India.
Notable & Unique Neighborhood Characteristics
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.
Real Estate
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 20 people per square mile living here, this neighborhood is less crowded than 94.8% of America.
People
If you're planning where to retire, the neighborhood in Potomac 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 IL, 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 85.7% of the neighborhoods in Illinois. If you are considering retiring to Illinois, this is a good neighborhood to look at.
Diversity
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Belgian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 0.7% of this neighborhood's residents have Belgian 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 Potomac are middle-income, making it a moderate income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 59.5% of the neighborhoods in America. In addition, 9.8% 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 50.5% 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, 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 28.7% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (16.8%), and 13.3% in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 98.5% 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 Potomac, IL, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (17.8%). There are also a number of people of English ancestry (9.9%), and residents who report Irish roots (7.9%), and some of the residents are also of Mexican ancestry (1.8%), along with some Polish ancestry residents (1.5%), among others.
Getting to Work
Even if your neighborhood is walkable, you may still have to drive to your place of work. Some neighborhoods are located where many can get to work in just a few minutes, while others are located such that most residents have a long and arduous commute. The greatest number of commuters in neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (46.6% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (82.5%) 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 (6.1%) . 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.
