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.
Accomac is a tiny coastal town (i.e. on the ocean, a bay, or inlet) located in the state of Virginia. With a population of 512 people and just one neighborhood, Accomac is the 330th largest community in Virginia.
Occupations and Workforce
When you are in Accomac, you'll notice that it is more blue-collar than most other communities in America. 54.72% of Accomac’s employed work in blue-collar jobs, while America averages only 27.7% that do. Overall, Accomac is a town of production and manufacturing workers, service providers, and transportation and shipping workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Accomac who work in healthcare suport services (15.41%), management occupations (6.60%), and office and administrative support (4.09%).
Setting & Lifestyle
Accomac is also nautical, which means that parts of it are somewhat historic and touch the ocean or tidal bodies of water, such as inlets and bays. Quite often, nautical areas such as these attract visitors and locals who come to enjoy the scenery and various waterfront activities.
Residents of the town have the good fortune of having one of the shortest daily commutes compared to the rest of the country. On average, they spend only 14.71 minutes getting to work every day.
Accomac is very much a car-oriented town. This is because the population of Accomac 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. 96.54% 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.
As is often the case in a small town, Accomac doesn't have a public transportation system that people use for their commute.
Demographics
The population of Accomac has a very low overall level of education: only 9.25% of people over 25 hold a 4-year college degree or higher.
The per capita income in Accomac in 2022 was $15,717, which is low income relative to Virginia and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $62,868 for a family of four. However, Accomac contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
Accomac is an extremely ethnically-diverse town. The people who call Accomac home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. People of Hispanic or Latino origin are the most prevalent group in Accomac, accounting for 47.65% of the town’s residents (people of Hispanic or Latino origin can be of any race). The greatest number of Accomac residents report their race to be Black or African-American, followed by White. Important ancestries of people in Accomac include English, German, Irish, Italian, and Haitian.
Accomac also has a high percentage of its population that was born in another country: 24.22%.
The most common language spoken in Accomac is Spanish. Other important languages spoken here include English and French Creole.
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
Do you like a coastal setting? If so, this neighborhood may be to your liking. The neighborhood is on the ocean, a bay, or inlet. Often such coastal places have amenities and recreational activities on the waterfront that are attractive to residents and visitors alike. In addition to being coastal, is a very nautical neighborhood, meaning that it is somewhat historic, walkable, densely populated and on the water. This gives the neighborhood a very nautical feel, with some seaside and shipping feel, which some may really enjoy the sights and sounds of.
Occupations
NeighborhoodScout's exclusive research identifies the neighborhood as having one of the highest concentrations of people employed in manufacturing or as laborers of any neighborhood in America. In fact, despite the loss of manufacturing jobs nationally, this neighborhood has 53.9% of its working residents employed in such fields, which is a higher proportion than 99.5% of American neighborhoods.
Furthermore, 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 8.3% of the workforce so employed, this neighborhood has a greater concentration of such workers than 98.7% of U.S. neighborhoods.
People
Of particular note, 3.7% of the people in the neighborhood currently reside in a correction facility, held due to punishment for a crime.
Diversity
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Haitian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 1.8% of this neighborhood's residents have Haitian ancestry.
is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 6.8% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak French at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 98.4% 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 Accomac are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 87.3% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 37.0% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 87.5% 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, 53.9% 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 19.5% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (12.2%), and 8.3% in farming, forestry, or commercial fishing.
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 57.7% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and French.
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 Accomac, VA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Mexican (15.2%). There are also a number of people of English ancestry (2.9%), and residents who report Haitian roots (1.8%), and some of the residents are also of German ancestry (1.6%), along with some Irish ancestry residents (1.3%), among others. In addition, 21.0% of the residents of this neighborhood were born in another country.
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 (47.6% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.
Here most residents (74.2%) 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 (21.7%) . 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.
