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.
Lerna is a tiny village located in the state of Illinois. With a population of 219 people and just one neighborhood, Lerna is the 784th largest community in Illinois. Lerna has a large stock of pre-World War II architecture, making it one of the older and more historic villages in the country.
Occupations and Workforce
Lerna is neither predominantly blue-collar nor white-collar, instead having a mixed workforce of both blue-collar and white-collar jobs. Overall, Lerna is a village of sales and office workers, professionals, and managers. There are especially a lot of people living in Lerna who work in office and administrative support (26.14%), management occupations (13.64%), and sales jobs (9.09%).
And if you like science, one thing you'll find is that Lerna has lots of scientists living in town - whether they be life scientists, physical scientists (like astronomers), or social scientists (like geographers!). So, if you're scientific-minded, you might like it here too.
Setting & Lifestyle
The overall crime rate in Lerna is one of the lowest in the US. This makes it one of the safer places to live in the country in terms of crime.
Residents will find that the village is relatively quiet. This is because it is not over-populated, and it has fewer college students, renters, and young children - all of whom can be noisy at times. So, if you're looking for a relatively peaceful place to live, Lerna is worth considering.
Lerna is a small village, and as is often the case with smaller towns, the population isn't large or dense enough to support much in the way of a public transportation system. In fact, there are many rural roads around Lerna, which makes walking or biking to and from work a bit difficult. This makes for a very car-oriented town: 98.85% of residents commute to work by private automobile, and people often drive out of town for work, shopping, and other activities.
Being a small village, Lerna does not have a public transit system used by locals to get to and from work.
Demographics
The citizens of Lerna have a very low rate of college education: just 7.59% of people over 25 have a bachelor's degree or advanced degree, compared to a national average of 21.84% for all cities.
The per capita income in Lerna in 2022 was $21,940, which is low income relative to Illinois and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $87,760 for a family of four.
The people who call Lerna home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Lerna residents report their race to be White. Important ancestries of people in Lerna include German, Irish, Dutch, Scottish, and Scots-Irish.
The most common language spoken in Lerna is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Polish.
Notable & Unique Neighborhood Characteristics
Many things matter about a neighborhood, but the first thing most people notice is the way a neighborhood looks and its particular character. For example, one might notice whether the buildings all date from a certain time period or whether shop signs are in multiple languages. This particular neighborhood in Lerna, the neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
Modes of Transportation
Would you like to be able to ride your bike to work? If you are attracted to the idea of getting a little exercise of the two-wheeled type while reducing your carbon footprint, bicycling to work might be the answer. But which neighborhood you live in can make this either impossible, or alternatively, a great and realistic option. NeighborhoodScout's analysis revealed that the neighborhood is a fantastic option for bicycle commuters, as 3.5% of commuters here do ride their bikes to and from work on a daily basis. This is a higher amount than we found in 96.6% of the neighborhoods in America.
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 37 people per square mile living here, this neighborhood is less crowded than 91.5% of America.
People
If you're planning where to retire, the neighborhood in Lerna 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 IL, 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 85.8% of the neighborhoods in Illinois. If you are considering retiring to Illinois, this is a good neighborhood to look at.
Diversity
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Swiss ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 1.3% of this neighborhood's residents have Swiss ancestry.
is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 4.2% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak German/Yiddish at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 98.8% 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 Lerna are middle-income, making it a moderate income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 57.9% of the neighborhoods in America. With 14.5% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 59.2% 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, 45.3% of the working population is employed in executive, management, and professional occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is manufacturing and laborer occupations, with 25.9% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (13.1%), and 12.7% in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants.
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 neighborhood is English, spoken by 90.7% of households. Other important languages spoken here include German/Yiddish and Spanish.
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 Lerna, IL, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (18.7%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (8.9%), and residents who report English roots (8.1%), and some of the residents are also of Mexican ancestry (3.1%), along with some Asian ancestry residents (2.0%), 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 (40.9% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (84.0%) 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 (9.4%) . 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.
