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.
Melstone is a tiny town located in the state of Montana. With a population of 145 people and just one neighborhood, Melstone is the 149th largest community in Montana. Melstone has a large stock of pre-World War II architecture, making it one of the older and more historic towns in the country.
Occupations and Workforce
Unlike some towns, Melstone isn’t mainly white- or blue-collar. Instead, the most prevalent occupations for people in Melstone are a mix of both white- and blue-collar jobs. Overall, Melstone is a town of professionals, transportation and shipping workers, and sales and office workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Melstone who work in teaching (21.95%), office and administrative support (14.63%), and healthcare (9.76%).
Setting & Lifestyle
Overall, Melstone’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!) Melstone 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. Melstone has few renters and college students. But the biggest reason it is quieter in Melstone than in most places in America, is that there are just simply fewer people living here. If you think trees make good neighbors, Melstone may be for you.
Compared to the rest of the country, citizens of Melstone spend much less time in their cars: on average, their commute to work is only 16.64 minutes. This also means that noise and pollution levels in the town are less than they would otherwise be.
Melstone is a very car-oriented town. 100.00% of residents commute to work in a private automobile rather than by other means, such as public transit, bicycling, or walking. This is because Melstone is a small town , and most people who live here have to drive out of town for work, and the town population is not large nor dense enough to support an extensive public transportation system. Melstone has a lot of rural roads, and houses can be far apart. Many residents drive out of town for regular shopping trips as well.
Being a small town, Melstone does not have a public transit system used by locals to get to and from work.
Demographics
Melstone ranks among the bottom of the nation in terms of college education compared to other cities and towns: only 4.55% of people over 25 have a college degree.
The per capita income in Melstone in 2022 was $30,075, which is middle income relative to Montana and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $120,300 for a family of four. However, Melstone contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
Melstone is an extremely ethnically-diverse town. The people who call Melstone home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Melstone residents report their race to be White, followed by Native American. Important ancestries of people in Melstone include German, Irish, English, Serbian, and Norwegian.
The most common language spoken in Melstone is English. Other important languages spoken here include Polish and Italian.
Notable & Unique Neighborhood Characteristics
When you see a neighborhood for the first time, the most important thing is often the way it looks, like its homes and its setting. Some places look the same, but they only reveal their true character after living in them for a while because they contain a unique mix of occupational or cultural groups. This neighborhood is very unique in some important ways, according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive exploration and analysis.
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 15.8% of the workforce so employed, this neighborhood has a greater concentration of such workers than 99.5% of U.S. neighborhoods.
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 1 people per square mile living here, this neighborhood is less crowded than 99.2% of America. One of the notable things about is that it is one of the quietest neighborhoods in America, according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis and quantitative rating of quietness. When you are here, you will find it to be very quiet. If quiet and peaceful are your cup of tea, you may have found a great place for you.
People
Priests and therapists would like to think they know the secrets to a truly successful marriage, but according to NeighborhoodScout's research, the folks of the neighborhood may actually hold the key. 69.8% of its residents are married, which is a higher percentage than is found in 96.1% of the neighborhoods in America.
Diversity
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Danish and Scots-Irish ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 4.5% of this neighborhood's residents have Danish ancestry and 4.6% 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 Melstone are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 72.1% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 16.0% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 62.0% 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, 26.8% 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 21.8% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (18.9%), and 16.8% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 98.5% of households. Some people also speak Italian (3.5%).
Ethnicity / Ancestry
Culture is the shared learned behavior of peoples. Undeniably, different ethnicities and ancestries have different cultural traditions, and as a result, neighborhoods with concentrations of residents of one or another ethnicities or ancestries will express those cultures. It is what makes the North End in Boston so fun to visit for the Italian restaurants, bakeries, culture, and charm, and similarly, why people enjoy visiting Chinatown in San Francisco.
In the neighborhood in Melstone, MT, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (22.7%). There are also a number of people of English ancestry (12.2%), and residents who report Irish roots (8.2%), and some of the residents are also of Norwegian ancestry (6.3%), along with some Scots-Irish ancestry residents (4.6%), 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 30 and 45 minutes commuting one-way to work (27.9% of working residents), which is at or a bit above the average length of a commute across all U.S. neighborhoods.
Here most residents (75.3%) 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.
