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.
Buena is a very small town located in the state of Washington. With a population of 1,048 people and just one neighborhood, Buena is the 263rd largest community in Washington. Much of the housing stock in Buena 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, Buena is generally considered to be a blue-collar town. 56.11% of the Buena workforce is employed in blue-collar occupations, compared to the national average of 27.7%. Overall, Buena is a town of construction workers and builders, sales and office workers, and farmers, fishers, or foresters. There are especially a lot of people living in Buena who work in farm management occupations (16.03%), office and administrative support (12.60%), and management occupations (10.69%).
In addition, many people in Buena have jobs in agriculture, more so than in most other communities in America. As a result, you will see quite a number of farms around town.
Setting & Lifestyle
As is often the case in a small town, Buena doesn't have a public transportation system that people use for their commute.
Demographics
In Buena, just 10.08% of people have at least a bachelor's degree, which is quite a bit lower than the national average for cities and towns of 21.84%.
The per capita income in Buena in 2022 was $17,542, which is low income relative to Washington and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $70,168 for a family of four. However, Buena contains both very wealthy and poor people as well. Buena also has one of the higher rates of people living in poverty in the nation, with 43.62% of its population below the federal poverty line.
Buena is an extremely ethnically-diverse town. The people who call Buena home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Buena residents report their race to be White, followed by Asian. Buena also has a sizeable Hispanic population (people of Hispanic origin can be of any race). People of Hispanic or Latino origin account for 42.14% of the town’s residents. Important ancestries of people in Buena include Irish, German, Yugoslavian, Other West Indian, and West Indian.
The most common language spoken in Buena is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Italian.
Notable & Unique Neighborhood Characteristics
The way a neighborhood looks and feels when you walk or drive around it, from its setting, its buildings, and its flavor, can make all the difference. This neighborhood has some really cool things about the way it looks and feels as revealed by NeighborhoodScout's exclusive research. This might include anything from the housing stock to the types of households living here to how people get around.
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 99.7% of all American neighborhoods. This is truly a unique cultural characteristic of this neighborhood.
People
has the amazing distinction of housing more same sex couples living together than 97.1% of neighborhoods in the U.S. If you are seeking such a neighborhood, NeighborhoodScout's analysis shows that this is one place that you should consider.
In addition, if you're planning where to retire, the neighborhood in Buena is a great option to consider. According to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive retirement dream area analysis, it's peaceful and quiet, has above average safety ratings compared to other neighborhoods in WA, offers a wide range of housing options, and has already attracted an enviable mix of college educated seniors. This neighborhood ranks as better for retirement living than 86.3% of the neighborhoods in Washington. If you are considering retiring to Washington, this is a good neighborhood to look at.
Diversity
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Belgian and Hungarian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 2.1% of this neighborhood's residents have Belgian ancestry and 3.0% have Hungarian ancestry.
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 Buena are middle-income, making it a moderate income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 55.2% of the neighborhoods in America. With 33.2% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 84.7% 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, 30.4% 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 21.7% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in farming, forestry, or commercial fishing (19.6%), and 14.2% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 68.8% of households. Some people also speak Spanish (29.8%).
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 Buena, WA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Mexican (35.7%). There are also a number of people of German ancestry (13.3%), and residents who report English roots (9.8%), and some of the residents are also of Irish ancestry (6.2%), along with some French ancestry residents (5.2%), among others. In addition, 10.2% of the residents of this neighborhood were born in another country.
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 (51.8% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (82.2%) 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 (6.1%) . 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.
