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.
Lake Waccamaw is a very small town located in the state of North Carolina. With a population of 1,273 people and just one neighborhood, Lake Waccamaw is the 373rd largest community in North Carolina.
Occupations and Workforce
Lake Waccamaw is a decidedly white-collar town, with fully 88.64% of the workforce employed in white-collar jobs, well above the national average. Overall, Lake Waccamaw is a town of professionals, sales and office workers, and service providers. There are especially a lot of people living in Lake Waccamaw who work in healthcare (22.35%), sales jobs (11.93%), and teaching (10.80%).
Setting & Lifestyle
Another notable thing is that Lake Waccamaw is a major vacation destination. Much of the town’s population is seasonal: many people own second homes and only live there part-time, during the vacation season. The effect on the local economy is that many of the businesses are dependent on tourist dollars, and may operate only during the high season. As the vacation season ends, Lake Waccamaw’s population drops significantly, such that year-round residents will notice that the city is a much quieter 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!) Lake Waccamaw 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. Lake Waccamaw has few renters and college students. But the biggest reason it is quieter in Lake Waccamaw than in most places in America, is that there are just simply fewer people living here. If you think trees make good neighbors, Lake Waccamaw may be for you.
As is often the case in a small town, Lake Waccamaw doesn't have a public transportation system that people use for their commute.
Demographics
In terms of college education, Lake Waccamaw is substantially better educated than the typical community in the nation, which has 21.84% of the adults holding a bachelor's degree or graduate degree: 33.49% of adults in Lake Waccamaw have a college degree.
The per capita income in Lake Waccamaw in 2022 was $43,990, which is wealthy relative to North Carolina, and upper middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $175,960 for a family of four. However, Lake Waccamaw contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
Lake Waccamaw is a very ethnically-diverse town. The people who call Lake Waccamaw home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Lake Waccamaw residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Important ancestries of people in Lake Waccamaw include English, Irish, Scots-Irish, Scottish, and German.
The most common language spoken in Lake Waccamaw is English. Other important languages spoken here include Italian and Spanish.
Notable & Unique Neighborhood Characteristics
Many things matter about a neighborhood, but the first thing most people notice is the way a neighborhood looks and its particular character. For example, one might notice whether the buildings all date from a certain time period or whether shop signs are in multiple languages. This particular neighborhood in Lake Waccamaw, the neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
Real Estate
Vacant homes and apartments are a significant characteristic of this neighborhood. In fact, with 35.2% of the residential real estate vacant, the neighborhood claims the distinction of having a higher vacancy rate than 96.5% 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.
Modes of Transportation
While most Americans do drive to work alone each day, the neighborhood stands out by having 89.3% of commuters doing so, which is a higher proportion of people driving alone to work than NeighborhoodScout found in 95.4% of all American neighborhoods.
People
If you're planning where to retire, the neighborhood in Lake Waccamaw is a great option to consider. According to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive retirement dream area analysis, it's peaceful and quiet, has above average safety ratings compared to other neighborhoods in NC, offers a wide range of housing options, and has already attracted an enviable mix of college educated seniors. This neighborhood ranks as better for retirement living than 86.1% of the neighborhoods in North Carolina. If you are considering retiring to North Carolina, this is a good neighborhood to look at.
Diversity
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Native American and Scots-Irish ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 19.9% of this neighborhood's residents have Native American ancestry and 4.7% have Scots-Irish ancestry.
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 Lake Waccamaw are middle-income, making it a moderate income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 40.4% of the neighborhoods in America. In addition, 6.1% 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 61.1% 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, 46.7% 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 20.5% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations (18.2%), and 13.4% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 98.4% 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 Lake Waccamaw, NC, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Native American (19.9%). There are also a number of people of English ancestry (10.2%), and residents who report Irish roots (5.1%), and some of the residents are also of Scots-Irish ancestry (4.7%), along with some German ancestry residents (3.5%), 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 between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (32.8% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (89.3%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. 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.
