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.
Box Elder is a tiny town located in the state of Montana. With a population of 85 people and just one neighborhood, Box Elder is the 150th largest community in Montana. Much of the housing stock in Box Elder was built prior to World War II, making it one of the older and more historic towns in the country.
Occupations and Workforce
Because occupations involving physical labor dominate the local economy, Box Elder is generally considered to be a blue-collar town. 47.83% of the Box Elder workforce is employed in blue-collar occupations, compared to the national average of 27.7%. Overall, Box Elder is a town of construction workers and builders, service providers, and professionals. There are especially a lot of people living in Box Elder who work in food service (26.09%), teaching (13.04%), and personal care services (8.70%).
Of important note, Box Elder is also a town of artists. Box Elder has more artists, designers and people working in media than 90% of the communities in America. This concentration of artists helps shape Box Elder’s character.
Setting & Lifestyle
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, Box Elder has relatively fewer families with younger children, and/or college students. Combined, this makes Box Elder a pretty quiet place to live overall. If you like quiet, you will probably enjoy it here.
Residents of the town have the good fortune of having one of the shortest daily commutes compared to the rest of the country. On average, they spend only 9.55 minutes getting to work every day.
Box Elder is a small town, and as such doesn't have a public transit system that people use to get to and from their jobs every day.
Demographics
In terms of college education, Box Elder ranks among the least educated cities in the nation, as only 0.00% of people over 25 have a bachelor's degree or advanced degree.
The per capita income in Box Elder in 2022 was $35,185, which is upper middle income relative to Montana, and middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $140,740 for a family of four. However, Box Elder contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
Box Elder is an extremely ethnically-diverse town. The people who call Box Elder home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Box Elder residents report their race to be Native American, followed by White. Important ancestries of people in Box Elder include English, Scots-Irish, Irish, German, and Yugoslavian.
The most common language spoken in Box Elder is English. Other important languages spoken here include African languages and Arabic.
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.
Modes of Transportation
In the neighborhood, carpooling is still a popular way to get to and from work. NeighborhoodScout's analysis reveals that 35.2% of commuters carpool here, which is more than in 99.5% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
Occupations
The neighborhood has a greater proportion of government workers living in it than 98.9% of the neighborhoods in America, according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. This is a unique feature of this neighborhood, and one that shapes its character.
Furthermore, 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 95.6% of all American neighborhoods. This is truly a unique cultural characteristic of this neighborhood.
Real Estate
Uncrowded roads, rural America and space to be the individual you are. If you like these characteristics, this neighborhood may fit you. With just 18 residents per square mile, is less crowded than 95.2% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
Diversity
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Native American ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 91.4% of this neighborhood's residents have Native American ancestry.
is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 2.9% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Native American languages at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 99.4% 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 Box Elder are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 87.6% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 43.1% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 91.1% of U.S. neighborhoods.
A neighborhood is far different if it is dominated by enlisted military personnel rather than people who earn their living by farming. It is also different if most of the neighbors are clerical support or managers. What is wonderful is the sheer diversity of neighborhoods, allowing you to find the type that fits your lifestyle and aspirations.
In the neighborhood, 44.8% 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 20.3% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in government jobs, whether they are in local, state, or federal positions (19.4%), and 16.2% 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 96.0% of households. Some people also speak Native American languages (2.9%).
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 Box Elder, MT, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Native American (91.4%). There are also a number of people of Mexican ancestry (4.3%), and residents who report German roots (1.6%), and some of the residents are also of English ancestry (1.4%), along with some Irish ancestry residents (1.3%), 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 (51.3% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (57.4%) 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 (35.2%) . 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.
