Oblong is a very small village located in the state of Illinois. With a population of 1,349 people and just one neighborhood, Oblong is the 640th largest community in Illinois.
Unlike some villages, Oblong isn’t mainly white- or blue-collar. Instead, the most prevalent occupations for people in Oblong are a mix of both white- and blue-collar jobs. Overall, Oblong is a village of service providers, sales and office workers, and professionals. There are especially a lot of people living in Oblong who work in office and administrative support (14.46%), personal care services (13.51%), and food service (12.70%).
Of important note, Oblong is also a village of artists. Oblong has more artists, designers and people working in media than 90% of the communities in America. This concentration of artists helps shape Oblong’s character.
Also of interest is that Oblong has more people living here who work in computers and math than 95% of the places in the US.
The rate of college-level education in Oblong 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 Oblong in 2022 was $28,339, which is low income relative to Illinois, and lower middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $113,356 for a family of four. However, Oblong contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
The people who call Oblong home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Oblong residents report their race to be White, followed by Native American. Important ancestries of people in Oblong include German, Irish, English, Italian, and Welsh.
The most common language spoken in Oblong is English. Other important languages spoken here include Italian and German/Yiddish.
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.
While most Americans do drive to work alone each day, the neighborhood stands out by having 92.1% of commuters doing so, which is a higher proportion of people driving alone to work than NeighborhoodScout found in 99.0% of all American neighborhoods.
There is an especially high percentage of incarcerated people (1.4%) living in the neighborhood.
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 Oblong are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 64.0% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 19.5% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 69.1% 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, 30.3% 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 28.0% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (26.9%), and 14.7% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 99.1% of households.
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 neighborhood in Oblong, IL, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (20.5%). There are also a number of people of English ancestry (14.6%), and residents who report Irish roots (6.9%), and some of the residents are also of Italian ancestry (2.7%), along with some French ancestry residents (1.3%), among others.
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 under 15 minutes commuting one-way to work (55.5% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.
Here most residents (92.1%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.