Buras is a very small town located in the state of Louisiana. With a population of 1,109 people and just one neighborhood, Buras is the 225th largest community in Louisiana. Buras has seen a significant amount of newer housing growth in recent years. Quite often, new home construction is the result of new residents moving in who are middle class or wealthier, attracted by jobs, a healthy local economy, or other amenities as they leave nearby or far away areas for greener pastures. This seems to be the case in Buras, where the median household income is $34,518.00.
Unlike some towns where white-collar or blue-collar occupations dominate the local economy, Buras is neither predominantly one nor the other. Instead, it has a mixed workforce of both white- and blue-collar jobs. Overall, Buras is a town of sales and office workers, professionals, and farmers, fishers, or foresters. There are especially a lot of people living in Buras who work in office and administrative support (24.02%), farm management occupations (14.41%), and teaching (12.91%).
The town 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, Buras has relatively fewer families with younger children, and/or college students. Combined, this makes Buras a pretty quiet place to live overall. If you like quiet, you will probably enjoy it here.
One downside of living in Buras, however, is that residents on average have to contend with a long commute, spending on average 35.20 minutes every day commuting to work.
Buras 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.
The population of Buras has one of the lowest overall levels of education in the country: only 0.00% of people over 25 hold a college degree. The national average for all municipalities is 21.84%.
The per capita income in Buras in 2022 was $24,126, which is middle income relative to Louisiana, and low income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $96,504 for a family of four. However, Buras contains both very wealthy and poor people as well. Buras also has one of the higher rates of people living in poverty in the nation, with 34.85% of its population below the federal poverty line.
Buras is an extremely ethnically-diverse town. The people who call Buras home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Buras residents report their race to be Asian, followed by White. Important ancestries of people in Buras include French, German, Irish, Acadian/Cajun, and Swedish.
In addition, Buras has a lot of people living here who were born outside of the US (32.90%).
The most common language spoken in Buras is English. Other important languages spoken here include Vietnamese and Mon-Khmer (Cambodian).
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.
The neighborhood is unique for having just 0.0% of adults here having earned a bachelor's degree. This is a lower rate of college graduates than NeighborhoodScout found in 100.0% of America's neighborhoods.
In addition, of note, 53.4% of the children in this area live in poverty; an extraordinarily high percentage compared to other neighborhoods in the nation. In a nation where approximately one in four children grows up in poverty, this neighborhood stands out for the depth of the problem manifested here.
Our research shows that more people carpool to work here in the (43.1%) than in 99.9% of the neighborhoods in America.
Regardless of the means by which residents commute, this neighborhood has a length of commute that is notable. Long commutes can be brutal. They take time, money, and energy, leaving less of you for yourself and your family. The residents of the neighborhood unfortunately have the distinction of having, on average, a longer commute than most any neighborhood in America. 25.0% of commuters here travel more than one hour just one-way to work. That is more than two hours per day. This percentage with two-hour + round-trip commutes is higher than NeighborhoodScout found in 99.8% of all neighborhoods in America.
The neighborhood stands out for having the majority of its residential real estate made up of mobile homes. In fact, 61.4% of the occupied real estate here are mobile homes, which is a greater proportion than is found in 99.6% of the neighborhoods in the U.S. If you like mobile homes, this might be a great neighborhood in which to look for real estate.
In addition, owner-occupied real estate dominates the neighborhood. In fact, according to NeighborhoodScout research, the percentage of residential real estate occupied by its owner is higher here than in 98.2% of neighborhoods in America. Vacant homes and apartments are a significant characteristic of this neighborhood. In fact, with 35.4% 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.
Furthermore, homes built from 2000 through today make up a higher proportion of the neighborhood's real estate landscape than 97.0% of the neighborhoods in America. When you are driving around this neighborhood, you'll notice right away that it is one of the newest built of any, with the smell of fresh paint, and the look of young landscaping nearly everywhere you look. In fact, 76.9% of the residential real estate here is classified as newer.
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 11.5% of the workforce so employed, this neighborhood has a greater concentration of such workers than 99.1% of U.S. neighborhoods.
Did you know that the neighborhood has more French and Asian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 13.9% of this neighborhood's residents have French ancestry and 46.2% have Asian ancestry.
is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 20.3% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Mon-Khmer, which is the dominant language of Cambodia, at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 100.0% of the neighborhoods in America.
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 Buras are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 94.3% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 53.4% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 95.2% 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, 24.3% 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 23.6% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (21.2%), and 19.5% in manufacturing and laborer occupations.
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 62.5% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Mon-Khmer (the dominant language of Cambodia) and Vietnamese.
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 Buras, LA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Asian (46.2%). There are also a number of people of French ancestry (13.9%), and residents who report German roots (10.0%), and some of the residents are also of Irish ancestry (7.6%), along with some Swedish ancestry residents (1.5%), among others. In addition, 31.3% of the residents of this neighborhood were born in another country.
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 longer than one hour commuting one-way to work (25.0% of working residents), one of the longer commutes in America, which is a potential downside for residents of this neighborhood.
Here most residents (53.7%) 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 (43.1%) . In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.
