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West Salem, IL

This is a small community in a single neighborhood. As throughout the site, some neighborhood-level data are reserved for subscribers.





Overview


West Salem is a tiny village located in the state of Illinois. With a population of 755 people and just one neighborhood, West Salem is the 710th largest community in Illinois. West Salem has an unusually large stock of pre-World War II architecture, making it one of the older and more historic villages.

Occupations and Workforce

When you are in West Salem, you'll notice that it is more blue-collar than most other communities in America. 52.31% of West Salem’s employed work in blue-collar jobs, while America averages only 27.7% that do. Overall, West Salem is a village of transportation and shipping workers, professionals, and service providers. There are especially a lot of people living in West Salem who work in sales jobs (8.19%), food service (6.41%), and farm management occupations (6.05%).

Setting & Lifestyle

West Salem’s overall crime rate ranks among the lowest in the nation, making it a very safe place to live.

The village is relatively quiet, having a combination of lower population density and few of those groups of people who have a tendency to be noisy. For example, West Salem has relatively fewer families with younger children, and/or college students. Combined, this makes West Salem a pretty quiet place to live overall. If you like quiet, you will probably enjoy it here.

Being a small village, West Salem does not have a public transit system used by locals to get to and from work.

Demographics

The rate of college-level education in West Salem is quite a bit lower than the national average among all cities of 21.84%: just 11.83% of people here over 25 have a bachelor's degree or an advanced degree.

The per capita income in West Salem in 2018 was $24,189, which is low income relative to Illinois and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $96,756 for a family of four. However, West Salem contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.

The people who call West Salem home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of West Salem residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Important ancestries of people in West Salem include German, Irish, English, Eastern European, and Danish.

The most common language spoken in West Salem is English. Other important languages spoken here include Greek and Spanish.

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.

Occupations

Each year, fewer and fewer Americans make their living as farmers, foresters, or fishers. But the neighborhood truly stands out among U.S. neighborhoods. According to exclusive NeighborhoodScout analysis, this neighborhood has a greater proportion of farmers, foresters, or fishers than 97.7% of all American neighborhoods. This is truly a unique cultural characteristic of this neighborhood.

Furthermore, more people work in manufacturing and as laborers here in the neighborhood than in 95.7% of the neighborhoods in America. Despite the loss of manufacturing jobs across the nation, this neighborhood remains a place where, compared to other parts of the country, you will find many laborers and manufacturers.

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 19 people per square mile living here, this neighborhood is less crowded than 94.9% of America.

Diversity

Did you know that the neighborhood has more Eastern European and English ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 1.9% of this neighborhood's residents have Eastern European ancestry and 21.2% have English ancestry.

is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 0.9% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Greek at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 96.2% of the neighborhoods in America.

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 West Salem are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 63.7% of U.S. neighborhoods. In addition, 6.1% 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 61.1% 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, 42.5% of the working population is employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is executive, management, and professional occupations, with 27.2% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (16.6%), and 7.6% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.

Languages

The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 98.9% 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 West Salem, IL, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (23.3%). There are also a number of people of English ancestry (21.2%), and residents who report Irish roots (14.0%), and some of the residents are also of Eastern European ancestry (1.9%).

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 (28.6% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.

Here most residents (82.1%) 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 (8.6%) . In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.


Real Estate includes:
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Economics & Demographics include:
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Commute To Work
Migration & Mobility
Race & Ethnic Diversity
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Crime includes:
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Schools include:
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