Buras is a very small town located in the state of Louisiana. With a population of 1,109 people and just one neighborhood, Buras is the 225th largest community in Louisiana. Buras has seen a significant amount of newer housing growth in recent years. Quite often, new home construction is the result of new residents moving in who are middle class or wealthier, attracted by jobs, a healthy local economy, or other amenities as they leave nearby or far away areas for greener pastures. This seems to be the case in Buras, where the median household income is $57,596.00.
Because occupations involving physical labor dominate the local economy, Buras is generally considered to be a blue-collar town. 43.68% of the Buras workforce is employed in blue-collar occupations, compared to the national average of 27.7%. Overall, Buras is a town of sales and office workers, farmers, fishers, or foresters, and transportation and shipping workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Buras who work in farm management occupations (25.27%), office and administrative support (22.38%), and sales jobs (21.66%).
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!) Buras 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. Buras has few renters and college students. But the biggest reason it is quieter in Buras than in most places in America, is that there are just simply fewer people living here. If you think trees make good neighbors, Buras may be for you.
As is often the case in a small town, Buras doesn't have a public transportation system that people use for their commute.
The population of Buras has one of the lowest overall levels of education in the country: only 0.00% of people over 25 hold a college degree. The national average for all municipalities is 21.84%.
The per capita income in Buras in 2022 was $25,510, which is middle income relative to Louisiana, and low income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $102,040 for a family of four. However, Buras contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
Buras is an extremely ethnically-diverse town. The people who call Buras home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Buras residents report their race to be Asian, followed by White. Important ancestries of people in Buras include French, Irish, German, Swedish, and Italian.
Foreign born people are also an important part of Buras's cultural character, accounting for 40.03% of the town’s population.
The most common language spoken in Buras is English. Other important languages spoken here include Vietnamese and Mon-Khmer (Cambodian).
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 Buras, the neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
The neighborhood has a greater percentage of children living in poverty (56.4%) than found in 96.1% of all U.S. neighborhoods. Children living in poverty is one of the challenges facing America, and the world, and in this neighborhood in particular, the problem can be considered acute.
In addition, the neighborhood is unique for having just 0.0% of adults here having earned a bachelor's degree. This is a lower rate of college graduates than NeighborhoodScout found in 100.0% of America's neighborhoods.
The neighborhood stands out for having the majority of its residential real estate made up of mobile homes. In fact, 72.1% of the occupied real estate here are mobile homes, which is a greater proportion than is found in 99.8% of the neighborhoods in the U.S. If you like mobile homes, this might be a great neighborhood in which to look for real estate.
In addition, vacant homes and apartments are a significant characteristic of this neighborhood. In fact, with 43.4% of the residential real estate vacant, the neighborhood claims the distinction of having a higher vacancy rate than 98.1% of the neighborhoods in America. This can either be because much of the property is seasonally occupied, like in many vacation areas, or that much of the real estate is more permanently abandoned.
Furthermore, if you like the look and ambience of new homes and newly built neighborhoods, you will love the neighborhood. A whopping 81.2% of the homes and other residential real estate here were built after 1999, which is a higher proportion of new homes then you will find in 97.4% of the neighborhoods in the U.S. Everything here just feels new. In fact, the concentration of newer homes here is so great that they completely dominate the landscape. In most neighborhoods, there is a mixture of ages of residential real estate, but here it is almost completely built during one time frame: 2000 through today.
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 23.0% of the workforce so employed, this neighborhood has a greater concentration of such workers than 99.8% of U.S. neighborhoods.
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. Long commutes can be brutal. They take time, money, and energy, leaving less of you for yourself and your family. The residents of the neighborhood unfortunately have the distinction of having, on average, a longer commute than most any neighborhood in America. 15.5% of commuters here travel more than one hour just one-way to work. That is more than two hours per day. This percentage with two-hour + round-trip commutes is higher than NeighborhoodScout found in 98.8% of all neighborhoods in America.
In the neighborhood, walking to work is a real option for many. In fact, NeighborhoodScout's exclusive research reveals walking to and from work is the chosen way to commute for 10.8% of residents here. This is a higher proportion of walking commuters than we found in 95.4% of American neighborhoods. Get ready to put on your walking shoes if you move here!
Did you know that the neighborhood has more French and Asian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 13.7% of this neighborhood's residents have French ancestry and 44.8% have Asian ancestry.
is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 15.9% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Mon-Khmer, which is the dominant language of Cambodia, at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 100.0% of the neighborhoods in America.
Do you like to be surrounded by people from all over the country or world, with different perspectives and life experiences? Or do you instead prefer to be in a neighborhood where most residents have lived there for a long time, creating a sense of cohesiveness? NeighborhoodScout's analysis reveals that this neighborhood stands out among American neighborhoods for the uniqueness of the mobility of its residents. More residents of the neighborhood live here today that also were living in this same neighborhood five years ago than is found in 95.5% of U.S. neighborhoods. This neighborhood is really made up of people who know each other, don't move often, and have lived here in this very neighborhood for quite a while.
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 Buras 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 56.4% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 96.1% of U.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, 31.6% of the working population is employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is farming, forestry, or commercial fishing, with 23.0% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (20.4%), and 19.4% in manufacturing and laborer occupations.
Languages
The languages spoken by people in this neighborhood are diverse. These are tabulated as the languages people preferentially speak when they are at home with their families. The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 60.4% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Vietnamese and Mon-Khmer (the dominant language of Cambodia).
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 Buras, LA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Asian (44.8%). There are also a number of people of French ancestry (13.7%), and residents who report Irish roots (8.9%), and some of the residents are also of German ancestry (4.3%), along with some Swedish ancestry residents (1.6%), among others. In addition, 35.4% of the residents of this neighborhood were born in another country.
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 (57.8% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans. However, there is also a significant group of residents (15.5%) who commute over an hour in each direction.
Here most residents (70.8%) 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 (18.4%) and 10.8% of residents also hop out the door and walk to work for their daily commute. In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.
