Buras is a very small town located in the state of Louisiana. With a population of 1,109 people and just one neighborhood, Buras is the 225th largest community in Louisiana. Buras 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 Buras, where the median household income is $57,596.00.
Because occupations involving physical labor dominate the local economy, Buras is generally considered to be a blue-collar town. 43.68% of the Buras workforce is employed in blue-collar occupations, compared to the national average of 27.7%. Overall, Buras is a town of sales and office workers, farmers, fishers, or foresters, and transportation and shipping workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Buras who work in farm management occupations (25.27%), office and administrative support (22.38%), and sales jobs (21.66%).
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!) Buras 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. Buras has few renters and college students. But the biggest reason it is quieter in Buras than in most places in America, is that there are just simply fewer people living here. If you think trees make good neighbors, Buras may be for you.
As is often the case in a small town, Buras doesn't have a public transportation system that people use for their commute.
The population of Buras has one of the lowest overall levels of education in the country: only 0.00% of people over 25 hold a college degree. The national average for all municipalities is 21.84%.
The per capita income in Buras in 2022 was $25,510, which is middle income relative to Louisiana, and low income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $102,040 for a family of four. However, Buras contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
Buras is an extremely ethnically-diverse town. The people who call Buras home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Buras residents report their race to be Asian, followed by White. Important ancestries of people in Buras include French, Irish, German, Swedish, and Italian.
Foreign born people are also an important part of Buras's cultural character, accounting for 40.03% of the town’s population.
The most common language spoken in Buras is English. Other important languages spoken here include Vietnamese and Mon-Khmer (Cambodian).
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, 56.4% 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 100.0% 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 100.0% of the neighborhoods in America.
The neighborhood stands out for having the majority of its residential real estate made up of mobile homes. In fact, 72.1% of the occupied real estate here are mobile homes, which is a greater proportion than is found in 99.8% of the neighborhoods in the U.S. If you like mobile homes, this might be a great neighborhood in which to look for real estate.
In addition, despite all of the residential real estate here in the neighborhood, NeighborhoodScout has discovered that much of it is vacant. In resort or second-home vacation areas, this naturally occurs because homes and apartments are seasonally occupied, and empty for a portion of the year. In non-vacation or resort areas, however, this can be an indicator of property abandonment or a weak real estate market. The vacancy rate here is 43.4%, which is higher than 98.1% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
Furthermore, homes built from 2000 through today make up a higher proportion of the neighborhood's real estate landscape than 97.4% of the neighborhoods in America. When you are driving around this neighborhood, you'll notice right away that it is one of the newest built of any, with the smell of fresh paint, and the look of young landscaping nearly everywhere you look. In fact, 81.2% of the residential real estate here is classified as newer. In fact, the concentration of newer homes here is so great that they completely dominate the landscape. In most neighborhoods, there is a mixture of ages of residential real estate, but here it is almost completely built during one time frame: 2000 through today.
Each year, fewer and fewer Americans make their living as farmers, foresters, or fishers. But the neighborhood truly stands out among U.S. neighborhoods. According to exclusive NeighborhoodScout analysis, this neighborhood has a greater proportion of farmers, foresters, or fishers than 99.8% of all American neighborhoods. This is truly a unique cultural characteristic of this neighborhood.
Whether walking, biking, riding, or driving, the length of one's commute is an important factor for one's quality of life. The neighborhood stands out for its commute length, according to NeighborhoodScout's analysis. Long commutes can be brutal. They take time, money, and energy, leaving less of you for yourself and your family. The residents of the neighborhood unfortunately have the distinction of having, on average, a longer commute than most any neighborhood in America. 15.5% of commuters here travel more than one hour just one-way to work. That is more than two hours per day. This percentage with two-hour + round-trip commutes is higher than NeighborhoodScout found in 98.8% of all neighborhoods in America.
More people in choose to walk to work each day (10.8%) than almost any neighborhood in America. If you are attracted to the idea of being able to walk to work, this neighborhood could be a good choice.
Did you know that the neighborhood has more French and Asian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 13.7% of this neighborhood's residents have French ancestry and 44.8% have Asian ancestry.
is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 15.9% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Mon-Khmer, which is the dominant language of Cambodia, at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 100.0% of the neighborhoods in America.
Some neighborhoods have more internal cohesiveness than others. While other neighborhoods feel like a collection of strangers who just happen to live near each other. Sometimes this comes down to not only the personalities of the people in a place, but how long people have been together in that neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research has revealed some interesting things about the rootedness of people in the neighborhood. More residents of the neighborhood live here today that also were living in this same neighborhood five years ago than is found in 95.5% of U.S. neighborhoods. This neighborhood is really made up of people who know each other, don't move often, and have lived here in this very neighborhood for quite a while.
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 Buras are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 100.0% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 56.4% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 96.1% 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, 31.6% of the working population is employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is farming, forestry, or commercial fishing, with 23.0% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (20.4%), and 19.4% in manufacturing and laborer occupations.
Languages
The languages spoken by people in this neighborhood are diverse. These are tabulated as the languages people preferentially speak when they are at home with their families. The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 60.4% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Vietnamese and Mon-Khmer (the dominant language of Cambodia).
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 Buras, LA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Asian (44.8%). There are also a number of people of French ancestry (13.7%), and residents who report Irish roots (8.9%), and some of the residents are also of German ancestry (4.3%), along with some Swedish ancestry residents (1.6%), among others. In addition, 35.4% of the residents of this neighborhood were born in another country.
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 (57.8% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans. However, there is also a significant group of residents (15.5%) who commute over an hour in each direction.
Here most residents (70.8%) 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 (18.4%) and 10.8% of residents also hop out the door and walk to work for their daily commute. In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.
