West Union is a tiny town located in the state of Illinois. With a population of 271 people and just one neighborhood, West Union is the 781st largest community in Illinois. West Union has an unusually large stock of pre-World War II architecture, making it one of the older and more historic towns.
West Union is neither predominantly blue-collar nor white-collar, instead having a mixed workforce of both blue-collar and white-collar jobs. Overall, West Union is a town of sales and office workers, managers, and construction workers and builders. There are especially a lot of people living in West Union who work in office and administrative support (29.41%), sales jobs (21.57%), and management occupations (15.69%).
West Union’s overall crime rate ranks among the lowest in the nation, making it a very safe place to live.
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!) West Union 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. West Union has few renters and college students. But the biggest reason it is quieter in West Union than in most places in America, is that there are just simply fewer people living here. If you think trees make good neighbors, West Union may be for you.
Being a small town, West Union does not have a public transit system used by locals to get to and from work.
In West Union, just 9.30% of people over 25 hold a college degree, which is very low compared to the rest of the nation, whereas the average among all cities is 21.84%.
The per capita income in West Union in 2022 was $30,909, which is lower middle income relative to Illinois, and middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $123,636 for a family of four. However, West Union contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
West Union is a very ethnically-diverse town. The people who call West Union home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of West Union residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Important ancestries of people in West Union include German, English, Irish, European, and Welsh.
The most common language spoken in West Union is English. Other important languages spoken here include Italian and Polish.
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.
Priests and therapists would like to think they know the secrets to a truly successful marriage, but according to NeighborhoodScout's research, the folks of the neighborhood may actually hold the key. 71.1% of its residents are married, which is a higher percentage than is found in 97.1% of the neighborhoods in America.
In addition, the neighborhood is a great option for families, as revealed by NeighborhoodScout's research on this neighborhood. The combination of top public schools, low crime rates, and owner-occupied single family homes, make this neighborhood among the top 9.5% of family-friendly neighborhoods in the state of Illinois. Many other families also live here, making it easy to socialize and develop a sense of community. In addition, families here highly value education, as is reflected by the strength of the local schools.
This neighborhood has wide open spaces, few people, and lots of space to stretch out. If you like locations that fit that description, you may like this neighborhood. Based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis, with only 16 people per square mile living here, this neighborhood is less crowded than 95.5% of America.
Our research reveals that 89.2% of commuters who live in the neighborhood get to work each day by driving alone in their automobiles, which is a higher proportion than 95.3% of U.S. neighborhoods.
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 West Union are upper-middle income, making it an above average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 65.9% of the neighborhoods in America. In addition, 1.6% 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 76.8% of America's neighborhoods.
The old saying "you are what you eat" is true. But it is also true that you are what you do for a living. The types of occupations your neighbors have shape their character, and together as a group, their collective occupations shape the culture of a place.
In the neighborhood, 47.1% 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 32.0% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (13.2%), and 7.4% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 99.0% of households. Some people also speak Italian (2.0%).
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 West Union, IL, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (19.4%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (15.3%), and residents who report English roots (14.3%), and some of the residents are also of French ancestry (3.7%), along with some Scottish ancestry residents (2.3%), among others.
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 30 and 45 minutes commuting one-way to work (38.2% of working residents), which is at or a bit above the average length of a commute across all U.S. neighborhoods.
Here most residents (89.2%) 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 (5.6%) . In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.