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.
Smithers - Boomer is a very small town located in the state of West Virginia. With a population of 4,370 people and just one neighborhood, Smithers - Boomer is the 40th largest community in West Virginia.
Occupations and Workforce
Unlike some towns, Smithers - Boomer isn’t mainly white- or blue-collar. Instead, the most prevalent occupations for people in Smithers - Boomer are a mix of both white- and blue-collar jobs. Overall, Smithers - Boomer is a town of service providers, sales and office workers, and professionals. There are especially a lot of people living in Smithers - Boomer who work in office and administrative support (22.81%), food service (14.29%), and teaching (9.02%).
Also of interest is that Smithers - Boomer has more people living here who work in computers and math than 95% of the places in the US.
A relatively large number of people in Smithers - Boomer telecommute to their jobs. Overall, about 9.11% of the workforce works from home. While this may seem like a small number, as a fraction of the total workforce it ranks among the highest in the country. These workers are often telecommuters who work in knowledge-based, white-collar professions. For example, Silicon Valley has large numbers of people who telecommute. Other at-home workers may be self-employed people who operate small businesses out of their homes.
Setting & Lifestyle
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!) Smithers - Boomer 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. Smithers - Boomer has few renters and college students. But the biggest reason it is quieter in Smithers - Boomer than in most places in America, is that there are just simply fewer people living here. If you think trees make good neighbors, Smithers - Boomer may be for you.
One downside of living in Smithers - Boomer, however, is that residents on average have to contend with a long commute, spending on average 32.20 minutes every day commuting to work.
Being a small town, Smithers - Boomer does not have a public transit system used by locals to get to and from work.
Demographics
The citizens of Smithers - Boomer are slightly better educated than the national average of 21.84% for all cities and towns, with 22.16% of adults in Smithers - Boomer having a bachelor's degree or advanced degree.
The per capita income in Smithers - Boomer in 2018 was $19,381, which is lower middle income relative to West Virginia, and low income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $77,524 for a family of four. However, Smithers - Boomer contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
Smithers - Boomer is a somewhat ethnically-diverse town. The people who call Smithers - Boomer home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Smithers - Boomer residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Important ancestries of people in Smithers - Boomer include Irish, German, Italian, English, and Scottish.
The most common language spoken in Smithers - Boomer is English. Other important languages spoken here include Portuguese 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 Smithers - Boomer, the neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
People
An interesting characteristic about the neighborhood is that there are more incarcerated people living here than 99.2% of neighborhoods in the U.S. The United States has the highest rate of incarceration in the world, currently with 1 out of every 100 adults in the country are incarcerated as a punishment for crimes committed. The extremely high incarceration rate of this neighborhood could mean that a prison, juvenile detention facility or other correctional facility occupies a large proportion of the neighborhood, or contains a large portion of the neighborhood's population.
In addition, if you are planning to retire in West Virginia, this neighborhood should be on your must-see list. For many reasons, may be considered a retiree's dream neighborhood. According to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis and metrics, it's peaceful and quiet, has above average safety from crime compared to other neighborhoods in West Virginia, while also offering a diverse range of housing options. This, along with the vibrant mix of very educated seniors and other age groups who choose to live here, makes the neighborhood more retiree-friendly than 96.3% of neighborhoods in WV. If a West Virginia retirement is in your future, this neighborhood should be one of the places you visit. In addition to being an excellent choice for active retirees, this neighborhood is also a very good choice for college students.
Diversity
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Scottish ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 6.4% of this neighborhood's residents have Scottish ancestry.
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 Smithers - Boomer are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 78.0% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 25.4% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 75.2% 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, 26.6% of the working population is employed in executive, management, and professional occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations, with 25.0% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (24.6%), and 23.9% in manufacturing and laborer occupations.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 98.8% of households.
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 Smithers - Boomer, WV, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Irish (13.8%). There are also a number of people of German ancestry (10.3%), and residents who report Italian roots (10.3%), and some of the residents are also of English ancestry (8.6%), along with some Scottish ancestry residents (6.4%), among others.
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 45 minutes and one hour commuting one-way to work (29.6% of working residents), longer and tougher than most commutes in America.
Here most residents (78.8%) 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 (10.9%) . 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.
