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.
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%).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 98.4% of households.
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.
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.