Boise, ID (West Downtown)

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 West Downtown neighborhood in Boise are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 93.3% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 42.0% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 90.7% 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 West Downtown neighborhood, 43.1% 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 25.2% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (18.8%), and 12.9% in manufacturing and laborer occupations.

Languages

The languages spoken by people in this neighborhood are diverse. These are tabulated as the languages people preferentially speak when they are at home with their families. The most common language spoken in the West Downtown neighborhood is English, spoken by 89.1% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Italian, Spanish, Greek and Arabic.

Ethnicity / Ancestry

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 West Downtown neighborhood in Boise, ID, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (18.7%). There are also a number of people of English ancestry (15.5%), and residents who report Irish roots (10.3%), and some of the residents are also of Mexican ancestry (9.9%), along with some Italian ancestry residents (5.5%), among others.

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 West Downtown neighborhood spend under 15 minutes commuting one-way to work (56.9% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.

Here most residents (44.0%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In addition, quite a number also bicycle to get to work (12.9%) and 9.6% of residents also hop out the door and walk to work for their daily commute. In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.