This is a small community in a single neighborhood.
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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.
Combs is a tiny town located in the state of Kentucky. With a population of 339 people and just one neighborhood, Combs is the 347th largest community in Kentucky. Much of the housing stock in Combs was built relatively recently. The construction of new real estate can often be taken as an indication that the local Combs economy is robust, and that jobs or other amenities are attracting an influx of new residents. This seems to be the case in Combs, where the median household income is .
Occupations and Workforce
When you are in Combs, you'll notice that it is more blue-collar than most other communities in America. 56.52% of Combs’s employed work in blue-collar jobs, while America averages only 27.7% that do. Overall, Combs is a town of transportation and shipping workers, sales and office workers, and production and manufacturing workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Combs who work in sales jobs (43.48%), office and administrative support (0.00%), and personal care services (0.00%).
Setting & Lifestyle
Combs’s overall crime rate ranks among the lowest in the nation, making it a very safe place to live.
The town 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, Combs has relatively fewer families with younger children, and/or college students. Combined, this makes Combs a pretty quiet place to live overall. If you like quiet, you will probably enjoy it here.
Compared to the rest of the country, citizens of Combs spend much less time in their cars: on average, their commute to work is only 7.50 minutes. This also means that noise and pollution levels in the town are less than they would otherwise be.
Combs is a very car-oriented town. 100.00% of residents commute to work in a private automobile rather than by other means, such as public transit, bicycling, or walking. This is because Combs is a small town , and most people who live here have to drive out of town for work, and the town population is not large nor dense enough to support an extensive public transportation system. Combs has a lot of rural roads, and houses can be far apart. Many residents drive out of town for regular shopping trips as well.
Being a small town, Combs does not have a public transit system used by locals to get to and from work.
Demographics
Combs ranks among the bottom of the nation in terms of college education compared to other cities and towns: only 0.00% of people over 25 have a college degree.
The per capita income in Combs in 2022 was $23,157, which is lower middle income relative to Kentucky, and low income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $92,628 for a family of four.
The people who call Combs home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Combs residents report their race to be White. Important ancestries of people in Combs include Yugoslavian, Other West Indian, West Indian, U.S. Virgin Islander, and Trinidadian and Tobagonian.
The most common language spoken in Combs is English. Other important languages spoken here include Italian and German/Yiddish.
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 Combs, the neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
People
Of note, 53.0% of the children in this area live in poverty; an extraordinarily high percentage compared to other neighborhoods in the nation. In a nation where approximately one in four children grows up in poverty, this neighborhood stands out for the depth of the problem manifested here.
In addition, single parenting is hard. But you don't have to tell the neighborhood about it; they already know. 27.1% of this neighborhood's households are run by single mothers, which is a higher concentration than NeighborhoodScout found in 99.2% of American neighborhoods. Further NeighborhoodScout research showed strong statistical correlations among high rates of children living in single parent households, and neighborhood crime, particularly violent crime, neighborhood poverty, and, importantly, the percentage of low weight births and rates of infant mortality.
Also, is ranked among the top 7.4% of neighborhoods for first-time home buyers to consider in the state of Kentucky according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. Homes here are priced below median housing values in the state, yet maintain moderate appreciation rates compared to other communities. Buying into the neighborhood is not only an accessible option but an investment opportunity for many first-time home buyers.
Length of Commute
Whether walking, biking, riding, or driving, the length of one's commute is an important factor for one's quality of life. The neighborhood stands out for its commute length, according to NeighborhoodScout's analysis. Residents of the neighborhood have the pleasure of having one of the shortest commutes to work of any neighborhood in America. 72.5% of the residents have a commute time from home to work (one way) of less than fifteen minutes. This is a higher proportion of residents enjoying a short trip to work than NeighborhoodScout found in 98.9% of U.S. neighborhoods. Less time commuting means more time for other things in life.
Modes of Transportation
While most Americans do drive to work alone each day, the neighborhood stands out by having 90.4% of commuters doing so, which is a higher proportion of people driving alone to work than NeighborhoodScout found in 97.6% of all American neighborhoods.
Diversity
Significantly, 4.7% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Vietnamese at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 98.1% of the neighborhoods in America.
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 Combs are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 100.0% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 53.0% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 95.2% of U.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, 51.2% 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 22.8% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (14.6%), and 11.4% 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 94.4% of households. Some people also speak Vietnamese (4.7%).
Ethnicity / Ancestry
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 Combs, KY, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as English (8.1%). There are also a number of people of Asian ancestry (5.1%), and residents who report Irish roots (3.2%), and some of the residents are also of Dutch ancestry (1.8%), along with some Scottish ancestry residents (1.1%), 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 under 15 minutes commuting one-way to work (72.5% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.
Here most residents (90.4%) 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.
