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.
Ekalaka is a tiny town located in the state of Montana. With a population of 397 people and just one neighborhood, Ekalaka is the 125th largest community in Montana.
Occupations and Workforce
Ekalaka is neither predominantly blue-collar nor white-collar, instead having a mixed workforce of both blue-collar and white-collar jobs. Overall, Ekalaka is a town of sales and office workers, service providers, and professionals. There are especially a lot of people living in Ekalaka who work in sales jobs (16.22%), office and administrative support (14.86%), and management occupations (12.84%).
Telecommuters are a relatively large percentage of the workforce: 23.97% of people work from home. While this number may seem small overall, as a fraction of the total workforce it is high relative to the nation. 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
Overall, Ekalaka’s crime rate is one of the lowest in the nation, which makes a great place to live if safety is an important concern.
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!) Ekalaka 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. Ekalaka has few renters and college students. But the biggest reason it is quieter in Ekalaka than in most places in America, is that there are just simply fewer people living here. If you think trees make good neighbors, Ekalaka may be for you.
Compared to the rest of the country, citizens of Ekalaka spend much less time in their cars: on average, their commute to work is only 9.93 minutes. This also means that noise and pollution levels in the town are less than they would otherwise be.
Being a small town, Ekalaka does not have a public transit system used by locals to get to and from work.
Demographics
The percentage of adults in Ekalaka with college degrees is slightly lower than the national average of 21.84% for all communities. 14.01% of adults in Ekalaka have a bachelor's degree or advanced degree.
The per capita income in Ekalaka in 2022 was $28,104, which is lower middle income relative to Montana and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $112,416 for a family of four. However, Ekalaka contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
The people who call Ekalaka home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Ekalaka residents report their race to be White, followed by Native American. Important ancestries of people in Ekalaka include German, Irish, Norwegian, English, and Scottish.
The most common language spoken in Ekalaka is English. Other important languages spoken here include Italian and Polish.
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.
Real Estate
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 0 people per square mile living here, this neighborhood is less crowded than 99.6% of America.
Occupations
It used to be that most Americans lived on the farm, or otherwise made their living from the land, the forests, or the sea. With global trade and an economy increasingly based on providing services to one another, fewer people farm, fish or harvest timber now than at any time in American history. But according to NeighborhoodScout's leading analysis, the neighborhood stands apart from most American neighborhood due to the proportion of its residents still working in these fields. With 8.6% of the workforce so employed, this neighborhood has a greater concentration of such workers than 98.7% of U.S. neighborhoods.
Modes of Transportation
In the neighborhood, many people's commute means walking from the bedroom to the home office. NeighborhoodScout's analysis found that 31.3% of residents worked from home. This may not seem like a large number, but Scout's research shows that this is a higher percentage of people working from home than 97.5% of the neighborhoods in America. Often people who work from home are engaged in the creative or technological economy, such as is found in areas around Boston, and in Silicon Valley. Other times, people may be engaged in other businesses like trading stocks from home, or running a small beauty salon.
Length of Commute
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. Residents of the neighborhood have the pleasure of having one of the shortest commutes to work of any neighborhood in America. 58.4% of the residents have a commute time from home to work (one way) of less than fifteen minutes. This is a higher proportion of residents enjoying a short trip to work than NeighborhoodScout found in 95.5% of U.S. neighborhoods. Less time commuting means more time for other things in life.
People
If you're nearing retirement age, or in retirement, the is an excellent choice for you to consider for top-quality retirement living. This neighborhood is rated by NeighborhoodScout as among the top 5.3% of retiree-friendly neighborhoods in Montana, combining peace and quiet, safety from crime, and offering diverse housing options from which retirees can choose. Maybe it's because of these amenities that a large proportion of the residents here are college educated seniors, mixed with other age groups. For these and other reasons, NeighborhoodScout identifies this neighborhood as a top-notch place to consider if you are thinking of or planning to retire in Montana.
Diversity
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Norwegian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 12.6% of this neighborhood's residents have Norwegian ancestry.
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 Ekalaka are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 84.0% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 20.2% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 69.1% 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, 57.5% 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 13.6% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (12.8%), and 8.6% in farming, forestry, or commercial fishing.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 99.2% 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 Ekalaka, MT, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (29.4%). There are also a number of people of English ancestry (14.1%), and residents who report Norwegian roots (12.6%), and some of the residents are also of Irish ancestry (11.0%), along with some Polish ancestry residents (2.4%), among others.
Getting to Work
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 under 15 minutes commuting one-way to work (58.4% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.
Here most residents (52.6%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In addition, quite a number also hop out the door and walk to work to get to work (9.0%) and 7.1% of residents also carpool with coworkers, friends, or neighbors 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.
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.
