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.
Western is a tiny village located in the state of Nebraska. With a population of 224 people and just one neighborhood, Western is the 201st largest community in Nebraska. Much of the housing stock in Western was built prior to World War II, making it one of the older and more historic villages in the country.
Occupations and Workforce
Western is a blue-collar town, with 35.45% of people working in blue-collar occupations, while the average in America is just 27.7%. Overall, Western is a village of service providers, managers, and professionals. There are especially a lot of people living in Western who work in management occupations (12.73%), healthcare suport services (8.18%), and sales jobs (7.27%).
A relatively large number of people in Western telecommute to their jobs. Overall, about 7.27% 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
Because of many things, Western is a very good place for families to consider. With an enviable combination of good schools, low crime, college-educated neighbors who tend to support education because of their own experiences, and a high rate of home ownership in predominantly single-family properties, Western really has some of the features that families look for when choosing a good community to raise children. Is Western perfect? Of course not, and if you like frenetic nightlife, it will be far from your cup of tea. But overall this is a solid community, with many things to recommend it as a family-friendly place to live.
In Western, however, the average commute to work is quite long. On average, people spend 32.65 minutes each day getting to work, which is significantly higher than the national average.
As is often the case in a small village, Western doesn't have a public transportation system that people use for their commute.
Demographics
In terms of college education, the citizens of Western rank slightly lower than the national average. 15.34% of adults 25 and older in Western have a bachelor's degree or advanced degree, while 21.84% of adults have a 4-year degree or higher in the average American community.
The per capita income in Western in 2022 was $27,659, which is low income relative to Nebraska, and lower middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $110,636 for a family of four. However, Western contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
The people who call Western home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Western residents report their race to be White, followed by Native Hawaiian. Important ancestries of people in Western include German, Czech, Irish, English, and Danish.
The most common language spoken in Western is English. Other important languages spoken here include Italian 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.
Real Estate
The neighborhood has earned the amazing distinction of having one of the highest rates of detached, single-family homes of any neighborhood in the U.S. With 99.5% of the residential real estate here made up of free-standing single-family homes, there is a greater proportion of single-family homes here than in 98.5% of all neighborhoods in America.
In addition, uncrowded roads, rural America and space to be the individual you are. If you like these characteristics, this neighborhood may fit you. With just 4 residents per square mile, is less crowded than 98.4% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
People
One of the really interesting characteristics about the neighborhood is that, according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive research, it is an excellent choice in which to reside for college students. Due to its popularity among college students who already choose to live here, its walkability, and its above average safety from crime, the neighborhood is ideal for prospective or already-enrolled college students. Between semesters and during school breaks, you'll notice that the excitement here fluctuates with the college seasons. Despite the excitement however, parents of college-age children can rest easy knowing that this neighborhood has an above average safety rating. For each of these reasons, the neighborhood is rated among the top 3.6% of college-friendly places to live in the state of Nebraska. In addition to being an excellent choice for college students, this neighborhood is also a very good choice for families with school-aged children.
Car Ownership
We Americans love our cars. Not only are they a necessity for most Americans due to the shape of our neighborhoods and the distances between where we live, work, shop, and go to school, but we also fancy them. As a result, most households in America have one, two, or three cars. But NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis shows that the neighborhood has a highly unusual pattern of car ownership. Residents of this neighborhood must really love automobiles. NeighborhoodScout's Analysis reveals that 33.4% of the households here have four, five, or more cars. That is more cars per household than in 95.2% of the neighborhoods in the nation.
Diversity
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Czechoslovakian and German ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 1.1% of this neighborhood's residents have Czechoslovakian ancestry and 35.5% have German 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 Western are middle-income, making it a moderate income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 46.8% of the neighborhoods in America. In addition, 2.0% of the children seventeen and under living in this neighborhood are living below the federal poverty line, which is a lower rate of childhood poverty than is found in 74.7% of America's neighborhoods.
What we choose to do for a living reflects who we are. Each neighborhood has a different mix of occupations represented, and together these tell you about the neighborhood and help you understand if this neighborhood may fit your lifestyle.
In the neighborhood, 50.9% 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 20.5% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (15.6%), and 10.6% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 95.4% of households. Some people also speak Spanish (2.9%).
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 Western, NE, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (35.5%). There are also a number of people of Mexican ancestry (5.6%), and residents who report Irish roots (5.6%), and some of the residents are also of English ancestry (4.5%), along with some Polish ancestry residents (2.1%), 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 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (33.5% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (80.2%) 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 (10.8%) . 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.
