This is a small community in a single neighborhood.
As throughout the site, some neighborhood-level data are reserved for subscribers.
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.
Chester Gap is a tiny town located in the state of Virginia. With a population of 894 people and just one neighborhood, Chester Gap is the 296th largest community in Virginia.
Occupations and Workforce
Because occupations involving physical labor dominate the local economy, Chester Gap is generally considered to be a blue-collar town. 45.38% of the Chester Gap workforce is employed in blue-collar occupations, compared to the national average of 27.7%. Overall, Chester Gap is a town of service providers, construction workers and builders, and managers. There are especially a lot of people living in Chester Gap who work in personal care services (12.57%), management occupations (11.79%), and business and financial occupations (6.68%).
Setting & Lifestyle
One downside of living in Chester Gap is that it can take a long time to commute to work. In Chester Gap, the average commute to work is 38.58 minutes, which is quite a bit higher than the national average. On the other hand, local public transit is widely used in the town, so leaving the car at home and taking transit is often a viable alternative.
In Chester Gap, a lot of people use the train to get to work every day though Chester Gap is a relatively small town. Those that ride the train are primarily traveling out of town to good jobs in other cities.
Demographics
The rate of college-level education in Chester Gap is quite a bit lower than the national average among all cities of 21.84%: just 11.29% of people here over 25 have a bachelor's degree or an advanced degree.
The per capita income in Chester Gap in 2022 was $32,834, which is middle income relative to Virginia and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $131,336 for a family of four. However, Chester Gap contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
Chester Gap is a somewhat ethnically-diverse town. The people who call Chester Gap home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Chester Gap residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Important ancestries of people in Chester Gap include English, Irish, Croatian, Scottish, and Polish.
The most common language spoken in Chester Gap is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Japanese.
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.
People
If you are planning to retire in Virginia, this neighborhood should be on your must-see list. For many reasons, may be considered a retiree's dream neighborhood. According to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis and metrics, it's peaceful and quiet, has above average safety from crime compared to other neighborhoods in Virginia, while also offering a diverse range of housing options. This, along with the vibrant mix of very educated seniors and other age groups who choose to live here, makes the neighborhood more retiree-friendly than 99.0% of neighborhoods in VA. If a Virginia retirement is in your future, this neighborhood should be one of the places you visit.
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. 12.9% 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 97.7% of all neighborhoods in America.
Real Estate
Uncrowded roads, rural America and space to be the individual you are. If you like these characteristics, this neighborhood may fit you. With just 26 residents per square mile, is less crowded than 93.4% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
Diversity
Did you know that the neighborhood has more English and Croatian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 27.3% of this neighborhood's residents have English ancestry and 1.4% have Croatian ancestry.
is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 0.6% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Persian at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 95.6% 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 Chester Gap are middle-income, making it a moderate income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 51.6% of the neighborhoods in America. In addition, 4.0% 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 68.0% of America'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, 32.9% 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 32.5% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in executive, management, and professional occupations (25.6%), and 8.3% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 98.4% of households. Some people also speak Italian (2.5%).
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 Chester Gap, VA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as English (27.3%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (16.0%), and residents who report German roots (10.6%), and some of the residents are also of Scots-Irish ancestry (4.3%), along with some Scottish ancestry residents (3.4%), 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 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (28.8% 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 (12.9%) who commute over an hour in each direction.
Here most residents (79.3%) 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 (8.6%) . 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.
