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.
Palo is a very small city located in the state of Iowa. With a population of 1,419 people and just one neighborhood, Palo is the 320th largest community in Iowa. Palo has seen a significant amount of newer housing growth in recent years. Quite often, new home construction is the result of new residents moving in who are middle class or wealthier, attracted by jobs, a healthy local economy, or other amenities as they leave nearby or far away areas for greener pastures. This seems to be the case in Palo, where the median household income is $92,368.00.
Palo real estate is some of the most expensive in Iowa, although Palo house values don't compare to the most expensive real estate in the U.S.
Occupations and Workforce
Unlike some cities, Palo isn’t mainly white- or blue-collar. Instead, the most prevalent occupations for people in Palo are a mix of both white- and blue-collar jobs. Overall, Palo is a city of sales and office workers, professionals, and managers. There are especially a lot of people living in Palo who work in office and administrative support (19.64%), management occupations (13.94%), and sales jobs (7.20%).
Also of interest is that Palo has more people living here who work in computers and math than 95% of the places in the US.
A relatively large number of people in Palo telecommute to their jobs. Overall, about 12.04% 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, Palo is a great place for families with children to consider. First of all, many other families with children live here, making Palo a place where both parents and children are more likely to develop social ties with other families, as well as find family-oriented services and community. The city’s good public school district and large population of college-educated adults provide an environment conducive to academic values. With regard to real estate, Palo has a high rate of owner-occupied single family homes, which tends to reflect stability in the local community. Finally, Palo’s overall crime rate is lower than average for the country.
Being a small city, Palo does not have a public transit system used by locals to get to and from work.
Demographics
The citizens of Palo are slightly better educated than the national average of 21.84% for all cities and towns, with 23.64% of adults in Palo having a bachelor's degree or advanced degree.
The per capita income in Palo in 2022 was $38,505, which is upper middle income relative to Iowa and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $154,020 for a family of four.
The people who call Palo home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Palo residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Important ancestries of people in Palo include German, Irish, English, Czech, and Norwegian.
The most common language spoken in Palo is English. Other important languages spoken here include Italian and Spanish.
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
Owner-occupied real estate dominates the neighborhood. In fact, according to NeighborhoodScout research, the percentage of residential real estate occupied by its owner is higher here than in 95.9% of neighborhoods in America.
People
According to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis, is among the best neighborhoods for families in Iowa. In fact, this neighborhood is more family-friendly than 95.4% of neighborhoods in the entire state of Iowa. Its combination of top public schools, low crime rates, and owner-occupied single family homes gives this area the look and feel of a "Leave It to Beaver" episode. Many other families also live here, making it easy to socialize and develop a strong sense of community. In addition, the high number of college-educated parents influences the academic success of the local schools. Overall, you will find all of the amenities a family needs to thrive in the neighborhood. In addition to being an excellent choice for families with school-aged children, this neighborhood is also a very good choice for highly educated executives and urban sophisticates.
Diversity
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Belgian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 1.0% of this neighborhood's residents have Belgian ancestry.
is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 0.8% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Urdu, which is the national language of Pakistan, at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 96.4% of the neighborhoods in America.
The Neighbors
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 Palo are wealthy, making it among the 15% highest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 85.2% of the neighborhoods in America. In addition, 1.0% 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 78.7% 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, 41.0% of the working population is employed in executive, management, and professional occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations, with 22.4% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations (19.7%), and 17.0% in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 96.9% of households.
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 Palo, IA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (30.3%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (15.4%), and residents who report English roots (8.5%), and some of the residents are also of Asian ancestry (2.6%), 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 (56.8% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (79.6%) 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 (7.3%) . 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.
