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!) Salem 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. Salem has few renters and college students. But the biggest reason it is quieter in Salem than in most places in America, is that there are just simply fewer people living here. If you think trees make good neighbors, Salem may be for you.
Salem is very much a car-oriented town. This is because the population of Salem isn't large enough or dense enough to support an extensive public transit system. It has a lot of rural roads, and the distance between houses can be quite large, which together tends to discourage walking and bicycling to work. 96.51% of residents commute to work in their own car (and the drive is typically to a job out of town). People also tend to drive out of town for other services as well, such as shopping, doctors appointments, and more.
Salem 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.
The percentage of people in Salem with college degrees is quite a bit lower than the national average for cities and towns of 21.84%: just 10.07% of people over 25 have a bachelor's degree or advanced degree.
The per capita income in Salem in 2022 was $27,744, which is middle income relative to South Carolina, and lower middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $110,976 for a family of four. However, Salem contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
The people who call Salem home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Salem residents report their race to be White, followed by Asian. Important ancestries of people in Salem include German, Irish, French, English, and Italian.
The most common language spoken in Salem is English. Other important languages spoken here include Polish and Spanish.
