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.
Bear Creek is a very small town located in the state of Alabama. With a population of 1,056 people and just one neighborhood, Bear Creek is the 292nd largest community in Alabama.
Occupations and Workforce
Because occupations involving physical labor dominate the local economy, Bear Creek is generally considered to be a blue-collar town. 58.93% of the Bear Creek workforce is employed in blue-collar occupations, compared to the national average of 27.7%. Overall, Bear Creek is a town of production and manufacturing workers, professionals, and transportation and shipping workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Bear Creek who work in management occupations (10.21%), sales jobs (5.57%), and maintenance occupations (5.57%).
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!) Bear Creek 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. Bear Creek has few renters and college students. But the biggest reason it is quieter in Bear Creek than in most places in America, is that there are just simply fewer people living here. If you think trees make good neighbors, Bear Creek may be for you.
As is often the case in a small town, Bear Creek doesn't have a public transportation system that people use for their commute.
Demographics
The citizens of Bear Creek have a very low rate of college education: just 9.46% of people over 25 have a bachelor's degree or advanced degree, compared to a national average of 21.84% for all cities.
The per capita income in Bear Creek in 2022 was $18,288, which is low income relative to Alabama and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $73,152 for a family of four. However, Bear Creek contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
The people who call Bear Creek home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Bear Creek residents report their race to be White, followed by Native American. Important ancestries of people in Bear Creek include English, French, German, Irish, and Scottish.
The most common language spoken in Bear Creek is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Greek.
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 Bear Creek, the neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
Real Estate
The real estate in this neighborhood consists of more mobile homes than 97.8% of all neighborhoods in America, with 40.2% of the occupied housing here being classified as mobile homes. So if you are looking for a mobile home, or you like the look and feel of mobile home parks, this neighborhood might have the setting you desire.
Modes of Transportation
Our research reveals that 90.3% of commuters who live in the neighborhood get to work each day by driving alone in their automobiles, which is a higher proportion than 97.5% of U.S. neighborhoods.
Occupations
NeighborhoodScout's exclusive research identifies the neighborhood as having one of the highest concentrations of people employed in manufacturing or as laborers of any neighborhood in America. In fact, despite the loss of manufacturing jobs nationally, this neighborhood has 42.7% of its working residents employed in such fields, which is a higher proportion than 96.0% of American neighborhoods.
People
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 95.3% of the neighborhoods in America.
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 Bear Creek are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 95.3% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 36.3% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 87.0% of U.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, 42.7% of the working population is employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is executive, management, and professional occupations, with 29.8% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (17.8%), and 9.8% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 96.2% of households. Some people also speak Spanish (3.7%).
Ethnicity / Ancestry
Culture is the shared learned behavior of peoples. Undeniably, different ethnicities and ancestries have different cultural traditions, and as a result, neighborhoods with concentrations of residents of one or another ethnicities or ancestries will express those cultures. It is what makes the North End in Boston so fun to visit for the Italian restaurants, bakeries, culture, and charm, and similarly, why people enjoy visiting Chinatown in San Francisco.
In the neighborhood in Bear Creek, AL, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as English (11.4%). There are also a number of people of Mexican ancestry (8.9%), and residents who report German roots (6.2%), and some of the residents are also of French ancestry (3.5%), along with some Irish ancestry residents (3.1%), 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 (42.4% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (90.3%) 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 (6.8%) . 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.
