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.
Cresco is a very small city located in the state of Iowa. With a population of 3,940 people and just one neighborhood, Cresco is the 121st largest community in Iowa. Cresco has a large stock of pre-World War II architecture, making it one of the older and more historic cities in the country.
Occupations and Workforce
Because occupations involving physical labor dominate the local economy, Cresco is generally considered to be a blue-collar town. 40.45% of the Cresco workforce is employed in blue-collar occupations, compared to the national average of 27.7%. Overall, Cresco is a city of sales and office workers, production and manufacturing workers, and professionals. There are especially a lot of people living in Cresco who work in office and administrative support (14.98%), sales jobs (11.19%), and healthcare (6.67%).
Setting & Lifestyle
Overall, Cresco’s crime rate is one of the lowest in the nation, which makes a great place to live if safety is an important concern.
One of the benefits of Cresco is that there is very little traffic. The average commute to work is 17.64 minutes, which is substantially less than the national average. Not only does this mean that the drive to work is less aggravating, but noise and pollution levels are lower as a result.
Demographics
The percentage of adults in Cresco who are college-educated is close to the national average for all communities of 21.84%: 20.75% of the adults in Cresco have a bachelor's degree or advanced degree.
The per capita income in Cresco in 2022 was $27,407, 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 $109,628 for a family of four. However, Cresco contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
The people who call Cresco home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Cresco residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Important ancestries of people in Cresco include German, Norwegian, Irish, Czech, and Polish.
The most common language spoken in Cresco is English. Other important languages spoken here include Polish 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.
Length of Commute
Regardless of the means by which residents commute, this neighborhood has a length of commute that is notable. Residents of the neighborhood have the pleasure of having one of the shortest commutes to work of any neighborhood in America. 66.2% of the residents have a commute time from home to work (one way) of less than fifteen minutes. This is a higher proportion of residents enjoying a short trip to work than NeighborhoodScout found in 97.8% of U.S. neighborhoods. Less time commuting means more time for other things in life.
People
If you're planning where to retire, the neighborhood in Cresco 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 IA, 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 89.3% of the neighborhoods in Iowa. If you are considering retiring to Iowa, this is a good neighborhood to look at.
Diversity
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Norwegian and Czechoslovakian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 17.5% of this neighborhood's residents have Norwegian ancestry and 0.9% have Czechoslovakian 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 Cresco are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 65.6% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 11.5% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 52.9% 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, 39.3% 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 22.8% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (20.5%), and 16.4% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 99.7% of households. Some people also speak Polish (2.4%).
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 Cresco, IA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (36.1%). There are also a number of people of Norwegian ancestry (17.5%), and residents who report Irish roots (8.8%), and some of the residents are also of Polish ancestry (4.1%), along with some English ancestry residents (3.8%), 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 under 15 minutes commuting one-way to work (66.2% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.
Here most residents (80.0%) 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 (7.4%) . 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.
