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.
Big Arm is a tiny town located in the state of Montana. With a population of 218 people and just one neighborhood, Big Arm is the 139th largest community in Montana.
Occupations and Workforce
Unlike some towns where white-collar or blue-collar occupations dominate the local economy, Big Arm is neither predominantly one nor the other. Instead, it has a mixed workforce of both white- and blue-collar jobs. Overall, Big Arm is a town of professionals, sales and office workers, and construction workers and builders. There are especially a lot of people living in Big Arm who work in healthcare (40.35%), sales jobs (38.60%), and office and administrative support (0.00%).
Setting & Lifestyle
Another notable thing is that Big Arm is an extremely popular destination for tourists and seasonal residents. So much of the population is seasonal such that the town’s population swells significantly during the vacation season, and drops again when the season ends. Because of this, much of the local economy is centered around tourism; some businesses may be operated only during the high season. During the low season, year-round residents will notice that the city is a substantially quieter place to live.
Residents will find that the town is relatively quiet. This is because it is not over-populated, and it has fewer college students, renters, and young children - all of whom can be noisy at times. So, if you're looking for a relatively peaceful place to live, Big Arm is worth considering.
Compared to the rest of the country, citizens of Big Arm spend much less time in their cars: on average, their commute to work is only 16.45 minutes. This also means that noise and pollution levels in the town are less than they would otherwise be.
Big Arm is very much a car-oriented town. This is because the population of Big Arm isn't large enough or dense enough to support an extensive public transit system. It has a lot of rural roads, and the distance between houses can be quite large, which together tends to discourage walking and bicycling to work. 100.00% of residents commute to work in their own car (and the drive is typically to a job out of town). People also tend to drive out of town for other services as well, such as shopping, doctors appointments, and more.
Big Arm is a small town, and as such doesn't have a public transit system that people use to get to and from their jobs every day.
Demographics
The rate of college-level education in Big Arm is quite a bit lower than the national average among all cities of 21.84%: just 10.17% of people here over 25 have a bachelor's degree or an advanced degree.
The per capita income in Big Arm in 2018 was $23,311, which is low income relative to Montana and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $93,244 for a family of four. However, Big Arm contains both very wealthy and poor people as well. Big Arm also has one of the higher rates of people living in poverty in the nation, with 51.79% of its population below the federal poverty line.
Big Arm is an extremely ethnically-diverse town. The people who call Big Arm home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Big Arm residents report their race to be Native American, followed by White. Important ancestries of people in Big Arm include Italian, Yugoslavian, Other West Indian, West Indian, and U.S. Virgin Islander.
The most common language spoken in Big Arm is English. Other important languages spoken here include Italian and Russian.
Notable & Unique Neighborhood Characteristics
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.
Occupations
The neighborhood has a greater proportion of government workers living in it than 98.2% of the neighborhoods in America, according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. This is a unique feature of this neighborhood, and one that shapes its character.
Real Estate
Vacant homes and apartments are a significant characteristic of this neighborhood. In fact, with 40.6% of the residential real estate vacant, the neighborhood claims the distinction of having a higher vacancy rate than 97.6% of the neighborhoods in America. This can either be because much of the property is seasonally occupied, like in many vacation areas, or that much of the real estate is more permanently abandoned.
In addition, 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 15 people per square mile living here, this neighborhood is less crowded than 96.0% of America.
Diversity
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Native American and Danish ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 22.4% of this neighborhood's residents have Native American ancestry and 4.3% have Danish ancestry.
is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 0.8% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Native American languages at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 96.8% 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 Big Arm are middle-income, making it a moderate income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 45.9% of the neighborhoods in America. With 24.3% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 74.8% of U.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, 41.7% of the working population is employed in executive, management, and professional 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 22.6% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations (18.3%), and 17.2% in government jobs, whether they are in local, state, or federal positions.
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 91.3% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Italian, Polish and Spanish.
Ethnicity / Ancestry
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 Big Arm, MT, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Native American (22.4%). There are also a number of people of German ancestry (18.4%), and residents who report English roots (12.7%), and some of the residents are also of Irish ancestry (9.1%), along with some Italian ancestry residents (4.6%), 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 under 15 minutes commuting one-way to work (44.1% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.
Here most residents (76.4%) 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 (9.8%) . 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.
