Dawson is a very small town located in the state of Alabama. With a population of 1,568 people and just one neighborhood, Dawson is the 256th largest community in Alabama.
Because occupations involving physical labor dominate the local economy, Dawson is generally considered to be a blue-collar town. 36.22% of the Dawson workforce is employed in blue-collar occupations, compared to the national average of 27.7%. Overall, Dawson is a town of sales and office workers, production and manufacturing workers, and construction workers and builders. There are especially a lot of people living in Dawson who work in sales jobs (20.38%), food service (8.21%), and business and financial occupations (7.77%).
Overall, Dawson’s crime rate is one of the lowest in the nation, which makes a great place to live if safety is an important concern.
The town is relatively quiet, having a combination of lower population density and few of those groups of people who have a tendency to be noisy. For example, Dawson has relatively fewer families with younger children, and/or college students. Combined, this makes Dawson a pretty quiet place to live overall. If you like quiet, you will probably enjoy it here.
Being a small town, Dawson does not have a public transit system used by locals to get to and from work.
The population of Dawson has one of the lowest overall levels of education in the country: only 4.03% of people over 25 hold a college degree. The national average for all municipalities is 21.84%.
The per capita income in Dawson in 2022 was $29,548, which is middle income relative to Alabama, and lower middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $118,192 for a family of four. However, Dawson contains both very wealthy and poor people as well. Dawson also has one of the higher rates of people living in poverty in the nation, with 31.67% of its population below the federal poverty line.
Dawson is a very ethnically-diverse town. The people who call Dawson home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Dawson residents report their race to be White. Dawson also has a sizeable Hispanic population (people of Hispanic origin can be of any race). People of Hispanic or Latino origin account for 13.41% of the town’s residents. Important ancestries of people in Dawson include Irish, German, Scottish, English, and French.
The most common language spoken in Dawson is English. Other important languages spoken here include French and Spanish.
The way a neighborhood looks and feels when you walk or drive around it, from its setting, its buildings, and its flavor, can make all the difference. This neighborhood has some really cool things about the way it looks and feels as revealed by NeighborhoodScout's exclusive research. This might include anything from the housing stock to the types of households living here to how people get around.
Of note, 74.3% of the children in this area live in poverty; an extraordinarily high percentage compared to other neighborhoods in the nation. In a nation where approximately one in four children grows up in poverty, this neighborhood stands out for the depth of the problem manifested here.
In addition, neighborhoodScout's exclusive research revealed that 96.0% of the adult residents in the neighborhood do not have a 4-year college degree, which is a lower rate of college graduated adults than found in 98.0% of the neighborhoods in America.
Also, the neighborhood stands out within Alabama for its college student friendly environment. NeighborhoodScout's analysis reveals that this neighborhood is home to a number of college students, is relatively walkable, and above average in safety. In combination, this makes it stand out for a good place for college students to consider. Because a number of college students live here, this neighborhood may be close to a college campus and offer certain amenities nearby geared towards the student body. While it's not an environment for everyone, ambitious scholars can enjoy seasonal excitement between semesters and school breaks, and parents can rest easy knowing that the area has an above average safety rating. For each of these reasons, the neighborhood is rated among the top 6.9% of college-friendly places to live in AL.
In the neighborhood, carpooling is still a popular way to get to and from work. NeighborhoodScout's analysis reveals that 28.6% of commuters carpool here, which is more than in 98.4% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
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 36.1% of the households here have four, five, or more cars. That is more cars per household than in 96.7% of the neighborhoods in the nation.
The real estate in this neighborhood consists of more mobile homes than 96.3% of all neighborhoods in America, with 33.5% 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.
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 Dawson are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 65.0% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 74.3% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 99.0% 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, 36.2% 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 34.9% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in executive, management, and professional occupations (23.2%), and 5.7% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 93.4% of households. Some people also speak French (2.2%).
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 Dawson, AL, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Mexican (13.4%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (12.9%), and residents who report German roots (8.6%), and some of the residents are also of Scottish ancestry (3.3%), along with some English ancestry residents (2.7%), 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 30 and 45 minutes commuting one-way to work (40.8% of working residents), which is at or a bit above the average length of a commute across all U.S. neighborhoods.
Here most residents (71.4%) 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 (28.6%) . In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.