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.
Thunderbolt is a very small town located in the state of Georgia. With a population of 2,550 people and just one neighborhood, Thunderbolt is the 239th largest community in Georgia.
Thunderbolt real estate is some of the most expensive in Georgia, although Thunderbolt house values don't compare to the most expensive real estate in the U.S.
Occupations and Workforce
Thunderbolt is neither predominantly blue-collar nor white-collar, instead having a mixed workforce of both blue-collar and white-collar jobs. Overall, Thunderbolt is a town of professionals, sales and office workers, and service providers. There are especially a lot of people living in Thunderbolt who work in sales jobs (15.74%), teaching (12.04%), and art, media, and design (9.26%).
Of important note, Thunderbolt is also a town of artists. Thunderbolt has more artists, designers and people working in media than 90% of the communities in America. This concentration of artists helps shape Thunderbolt’s character.
Telecommuters are a relatively large percentage of the workforce: 17.15% of people work from home. While this number may seem small overall, as a fraction of the total workforce it is high relative to the nation. 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
Being a small town, Thunderbolt does not have a public transit system used by locals to get to and from work.
Demographics
The education level of Thunderbolt citizens is very high relative to the national average among all cities (21.84%): 36.84% of adults in Thunderbolt have a bachelor's degree or even advanced degree.
The per capita income in Thunderbolt in 2022 was $38,190, which is wealthy relative to Georgia, and upper middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $152,760 for a family of four. However, Thunderbolt contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
Thunderbolt is an extremely ethnically-diverse town. The people who call Thunderbolt home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Thunderbolt residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Important ancestries of people in Thunderbolt include Irish, English, German, Polish, and Lebanese.
The most common language spoken in Thunderbolt is English. Other important languages spoken here include German/Yiddish and West Germanic languages.
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.
People
NeighborhoodScout's analysis shows that the neighborhood has a greater concentration of residents currently enrolled in college than 97.2% of the neighborhoods in the U.S. With 16.4% of the population here attending college, this is very much a college-focused neighborhood.
In addition, the neighborhood has a greater percentage of children living in poverty (58.8%) than found in 96.6% of all U.S. neighborhoods. Children living in poverty is one of the challenges facing America, and the world, and in this neighborhood in particular, the problem can be considered acute.
Also, with a nice mix of college students, safety from crime, and decent walkability, the neighborhood rates highly as a college student friendly place to live, and one that college students and their parents may want to consider. NeighborhoodScout's analysis shows that it rates more highly for a good place for college students to live than 86.7% of the neighborhoods in GA. This often also means that the area has certain amenities and services geared towards college students, from undergraduates to graduate students.
Diversity
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Lebanese ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 2.0% of this neighborhood's residents have Lebanese 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 Thunderbolt are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 67.9% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 58.8% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 96.6% 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, 37.5% of the working population is employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is executive, management, and professional occupations, with 37.0% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations (17.6%), and 7.9% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 95.4% of households.
Ethnicity / Ancestry
Boston's Beacon Hill blue-blood streets, Brooklyn's Orthodox Jewish enclaves, Los Angeles' Persian neighborhoods. Each has its own culture derived primarily from the ancestries and culture of the residents who call these neighborhoods home. Likewise, each neighborhood in America has its own culture – some more unique than others – based on lifestyle, occupations, the types of households – and importantly – on the ethnicities and ancestries of the people who live in the neighborhood. Understanding where people came from, who their grandparents or great-grandparents were, can help you understand how a neighborhood is today.
In the neighborhood in Thunderbolt, GA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as English (14.4%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (11.9%), and residents who report German roots (6.3%), and some of the residents are also of Polish ancestry (3.2%), along with some Italian ancestry residents (2.5%), 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 (53.2% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (60.6%) 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 (18.9%) . 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.
