Van is a tiny town located in the state of West Virginia. With a population of 177 people and just one neighborhood, Van is the 258th largest community in West Virginia.
Unlike some towns, Van isn’t mainly white- or blue-collar. Instead, the most prevalent occupations for people in Van are a mix of both white- and blue-collar jobs. Overall, Van is a town of professionals, service providers, and production and manufacturing workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Van who work in healthcare (35.19%), law enforcement and fire fighting (22.22%), and office and administrative support (14.81%).
Overall, Van’s crime rate is one of the lowest in the nation, which makes a great place to live if safety is an important concern.
Residents will find that the town is relatively quiet. This is because it is not over-populated, and it has fewer college students, renters, and young children - all of whom can be noisy at times. So, if you're looking for a relatively peaceful place to live, Van is worth considering.
One downside of living in Van is that it can take a long time to commute to work. In Van, the average commute to work is 35.28 minutes, which is quite a bit higher than the national average.
Van is a very car-oriented town. 100.00% of residents commute to work in a private automobile rather than by other means, such as public transit, bicycling, or walking. This is because Van is a small town , and most people who live here have to drive out of town for work, and the town population is not large nor dense enough to support an extensive public transportation system. Van has a lot of rural roads, and houses can be far apart. Many residents drive out of town for regular shopping trips as well.
Van 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 population of Van 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 Van in 2018 was $23,430, which is middle income relative to West Virginia, and lower middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $93,720 for a family of four.
Van is a very ethnically-diverse town. The people who call Van home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Van residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Important ancestries of people in Van include French, German, Irish, Greek, and English.
The most common language spoken in Van is English. Other important languages spoken here include Italian and Polish.
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 Van, the neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
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. 17.0% 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 99.1% of all neighborhoods in America.
The neighborhood is unique for having just 1.2% of adults here having earned a bachelor's degree. This is a lower rate of college graduates than NeighborhoodScout found in 98.8% of America's neighborhoods.
In addition, one of the unique characteristics of the neighborhood revealed by analysis is that the per capita income of residents here is lower than that found in 95.6% of the neighborhoods in America.
While most Americans do drive to work alone each day, the neighborhood stands out by having 91.6% of commuters doing so, which is a higher proportion of people driving alone to work than NeighborhoodScout found in 97.1% of all American neighborhoods.
Uncrowded roads, rural America and space to be the individual you are. If you like these characteristics, this neighborhood may fit you. With just 15 residents per square mile, is less crowded than 96.0% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
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 Van are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 95.6% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 19.1% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 66.4% 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, 32.5% of the working population is employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants, with 28.2% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in executive, management, and professional occupations (24.8%), and 14.6% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
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 99.7% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Italian and Polish.
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 Van, WV, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (12.3%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (8.5%), and residents who report Italian roots (5.0%), and some of the residents are also of Scots-Irish ancestry (3.1%), along with some Polish ancestry residents (2.6%), among others.
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 45 minutes and one hour commuting one-way to work (24.1% of working residents), longer and tougher than most commutes in America.
Here most residents (91.6%) 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 (8.4%) . In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.
