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.
Oakridge is a very small city located in the state of Oregon. With a population of 3,147 people and just one neighborhood, Oakridge is the 116th largest community in Oregon.
Occupations and Workforce
Oakridge is a blue-collar town, with 39.30% of people working in blue-collar occupations, while the average in America is just 27.7%. Overall, Oakridge is a city of service providers, professionals, and transportation and shipping workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Oakridge who work in maintenance occupations (17.27%), farm management occupations (11.86%), and law enforcement and fire fighting (10.91%).
Of important note, Oakridge is also a city of artists. Oakridge has more artists, designers and people working in media than 90% of the communities in America. This concentration of artists helps shape Oakridge’s character.
And if you like science, one thing you'll find is that Oakridge has lots of scientists living in town - whether they be life scientists, physical scientists (like astronomers), or social scientists (like geographers!). So, if you're scientific-minded, you might like it here too.
One interesting thing about the economy is that relatively large numbers of people worked from their home: 16.63% of the workforce. While this number may seem small overall, as a fraction of the total workforce this is high compared to the rest of the county. 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
The city is relatively quiet, having a combination of lower population density and few of those groups of people who have a tendency to be noisy. For example, Oakridge has relatively fewer families with younger children, and/or college students. Combined, this makes Oakridge a pretty quiet place to live overall. If you like quiet, you will probably enjoy it here.
One downside of living in Oakridge is that it can take a long time to commute to work. In Oakridge, the average commute to work is 31.43 minutes, which is quite a bit higher than the national average.
As is often the case in a small city, Oakridge doesn't have a public transportation system that people use for their commute.
Demographics
The citizens of Oakridge are slightly less educated than the national average of 21.84% for the average city or town: 14.16% of adults in Oakridge have a bachelor's degree or advanced degree
The per capita income in Oakridge in 2022 was $20,257, which is low income relative to Oregon and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $81,028 for a family of four. However, Oakridge contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
The people who call Oakridge home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Oakridge residents report their race to be White, followed by Native American. Important ancestries of people in Oakridge include English, German, Irish, Italian, and French Canadian.
The most common language spoken in Oakridge is English. Other important languages spoken here include Italian and Polish.
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 Oakridge, the neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
Occupations
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 99.0% of all American neighborhoods. This is truly a unique cultural characteristic of this neighborhood.
Real Estate
Unpopulated, and rural, the neighborhood is one of the least crowded neighborhoods in all of America. If you like open space, no traffic, and lots of room, this neighborhood may be just what you are looking for. According to NeighborhoodScout's leading research, this neighborhood is less densely populated than 98.2% of the neighborhoods in America.
Modes of Transportation
If your dream is to be able to ride your bike to work each day, look no further than this unique neighborhood. With 4.2% of residents in the neighborhood commuting on a bicycle to and from work daily, this neighborhood has more bicycle commuters than 97.5% of all neighborhoods in the U.S., according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis.
People
Divorcees may find friendship and understanding in this neighborhood, as 19.6% of its residents are divorced. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis found that this divorce rate is higher than in 95.0% of the neighborhoods in America.
Diversity
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Finnish and French Canadian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 2.1% of this neighborhood's residents have Finnish ancestry and 4.9% have French Canadian 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 Oakridge are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 94.5% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 20.3% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 70.1% of U.S. neighborhoods.
A neighborhood is far different if it is dominated by enlisted military personnel rather than people who earn their living by farming. It is also different if most of the neighbors are clerical support or managers. What is wonderful is the sheer diversity of neighborhoods, allowing you to find the type that fits your lifestyle and aspirations.
In the neighborhood, 29.5% of the working population is employed in manufacturing and laborer 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 28.8% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in executive, management, and professional occupations (18.8%), and 13.0% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 99.2% of households. Some people also speak Italian (3.8%).
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 Oakridge, OR, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as English (23.1%). There are also a number of people of German ancestry (19.3%), and residents who report Irish roots (13.1%), and some of the residents are also of Italian ancestry (10.0%), along with some French Canadian ancestry residents (4.9%), 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 between 45 minutes and one hour commuting one-way to work (46.7% of working residents), longer and tougher than most commutes in America.
Here most residents (63.6%) 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 (9.9%) and 8.2% 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.
