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.
Columbus Junction is a very small city located in the state of Iowa. With a population of 1,796 people and just one neighborhood, Columbus Junction is the 283rd largest community in Iowa.
Occupations and Workforce
Columbus Junction is a blue-collar town, with 52.67% of people working in blue-collar occupations, while the average in America is just 27.7%. Overall, Columbus Junction is a city of production and manufacturing workers, service providers, and sales and office workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Columbus Junction who work in office and administrative support (7.62%), sales jobs (7.07%), and food service (6.42%).
Setting & Lifestyle
Being a small city, Columbus Junction does not have a public transit system used by locals to get to and from work.
Demographics
The education level of Columbus Junction citizens, measured as those with bachelor's degrees or advanced degrees, is similar to the national average for all American cities and towns. 17.27% of adults 25 and older in Columbus Junction have a college degree.
The per capita income in Columbus Junction in 2022 was $27,788, which is low income relative to Iowa, and lower middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $111,152 for a family of four. However, Columbus Junction contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
Columbus Junction is an extremely ethnically-diverse city. The people who call Columbus Junction home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Columbus Junction residents report their race to be White, followed by Asian. Columbus Junction also has a sizeable Hispanic population (people of Hispanic origin can be of any race). People of Hispanic or Latino origin account for 41.50% of the city’s residents. Important ancestries of people in Columbus Junction include German, English, Irish, African, and Polish.
Columbus Junction also has a high percentage of its population that was born in another country: 26.37%.
The most common language spoken in Columbus Junction is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Polish.
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.
Occupations
More people work in manufacturing and as laborers here in the neighborhood than in 96.4% of the neighborhoods in America. Despite the loss of manufacturing jobs across the nation, this neighborhood remains a place where, compared to other parts of the country, you will find many laborers and manufacturers.
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 22 people per square mile living here, this neighborhood is less crowded than 94.2% of America.
Diversity
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Welsh ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 4.0% of this neighborhood's residents have Welsh ancestry.
The Neighbors
How wealthy a neighborhood is, from very wealthy, to middle income, to low income is very formative with regard to the personality and character of a neighborhood. Equally important is the rate of people, particularly children, who live below the federal poverty line. In some wealthy gated communities, the areas immediately surrounding can have high rates of childhood poverty, which indicates other social issues. NeighborhoodScout's analysis reveals both aspects of income and poverty for this neighborhood.
The neighbors in the neighborhood in Columbus Junction are middle-income, making it a moderate income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 54.0% of the neighborhoods in America. With 13.6% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 57.4% of U.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, 43.6% 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 23.7% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (17.9%), and 12.4% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 70.5% of households. Some people also speak Spanish (23.7%).
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 Columbus Junction, IA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Mexican (24.0%). There are also a number of people of German ancestry (21.2%), and residents who report Asian roots (5.6%), and some of the residents are also of Irish ancestry (5.6%), along with some English ancestry residents (5.5%), among others. In addition, 15.8% of the residents of this neighborhood were born in another country.
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 under 15 minutes commuting one-way to work (37.9% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.
Here most residents (77.3%) 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 (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.
