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.
Downsville is a tiny town located in the state of New York. With a population of 474 people and just one neighborhood, Downsville is the 894th largest community in New York. Much of the housing stock in Downsville was built prior to World War II, making it one of the older and more historic towns in the country.
Occupations and Workforce
Downsville is a decidedly white-collar town, with fully 87.02% of the workforce employed in white-collar jobs, well above the national average. Overall, Downsville is a town of service providers, managers, and professionals. There are especially a lot of people living in Downsville who work in management occupations (25.95%), maintenance occupations (21.37%), and food service (12.21%).
Of important note, Downsville is also a town of artists. Downsville has more artists, designers and people working in media than 90% of the communities in America. This concentration of artists helps shape Downsville’s character.
Setting & Lifestyle
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!) Downsville 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. Downsville has few renters and college students. But the biggest reason it is quieter in Downsville than in most places in America, is that there are just simply fewer people living here. If you think trees make good neighbors, Downsville may be for you.
Compared to the rest of the country, citizens of Downsville spend much less time in their cars: on average, their commute to work is only 15.17 minutes. This also means that noise and pollution levels in the town are less than they would otherwise be.
As is often the case in a small town, Downsville doesn't have a public transportation system that people use for their commute.
Demographics
The population of Downsville has one of the lowest overall levels of education in the country: only 5.86% of people over 25 hold a college degree. The national average for all municipalities is 21.84%.
The per capita income in Downsville in 2022 was $26,272, which is low income relative to New York, and lower middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $105,088 for a family of four. However, Downsville contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
The people who call Downsville home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Downsville residents report their race to be White. Important ancestries of people in Downsville include German, Italian, Irish, English, and Scottish.
The most common language spoken in Downsville is English. Other important languages spoken here include Italian and Other Indo-European.
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
Vacant homes and apartments are a significant characteristic of this neighborhood. In fact, with 52.6% of the residential real estate vacant, the neighborhood claims the distinction of having a higher vacancy rate than 98.9% 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.
In addition, 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 13 people per square mile living here, this neighborhood is less crowded than 96.4% 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.
Length of Commute
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. 14.5% 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 98.4% of all neighborhoods in America.
Diversity
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Yugoslav ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 0.5% of this neighborhood's residents have Yugoslav ancestry.
is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 15.3% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Italian at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 99.2% 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 Downsville are middle-income, making it a moderate income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 42.7% of the neighborhoods in America. With 14.2% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 58.6% 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, 31.9% of the working population is employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is executive, management, and professional occupations, with 31.7% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (26.7%), and 11.1% in government jobs, whether they are in local, state, or federal positions.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 95.5% of households. Some people also speak Italian (15.3%).
Ethnicity / Ancestry
Boston's Beacon Hill blue-blood streets, Brooklyn's Orthodox Jewish enclaves, Los Angeles' Persian neighborhoods. Each has its own culture derived primarily from the ancestries and culture of the residents who call these neighborhoods home. Likewise, each neighborhood in America has its own culture – some more unique than others – based on lifestyle, occupations, the types of households – and importantly – on the ethnicities and ancestries of the people who live in the neighborhood. Understanding where people came from, who their grandparents or great-grandparents were, can help you understand how a neighborhood is today.
In the neighborhood in Downsville, NY, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (24.4%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (18.9%), and residents who report English roots (10.9%), and some of the residents are also of Italian ancestry (10.6%), along with some Dutch ancestry residents (3.4%), among others.
Getting to Work
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 (28.7% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans. However, there is also a significant group of residents (14.5%) who commute over an hour in each direction.
Here most residents (76.8%) 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 (16.3%) . 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.
