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.
Thornton is a very small village located in the state of Illinois. With a population of 2,297 people and just one neighborhood, Thornton is the 539th largest community in Illinois.
Occupations and Workforce
Thornton is a blue-collar town, with 40.97% of people working in blue-collar occupations, while the average in America is just 27.7%. Overall, Thornton is a village of transportation and shipping workers, professionals, and service providers. There are especially a lot of people living in Thornton who work in office and administrative support (7.73%), healthcare (7.19%), and sales jobs (5.75%).
Of important note, Thornton is also a village of artists. Thornton has more artists, designers and people working in media than 90% of the communities in America. This concentration of artists helps shape Thornton’s character.
Setting & Lifestyle
It is a fairly quiet village because there are relatively few of those groups of people who have a tendency to be noisy. (Children, for example, often can't help themselves from being noisy, and being parents ourselves, we know!) Thornton has relatively few families with children living at home, and is quieter because of it. Renters and college students, for their own reasons, can also be noisy. Thornton has few renters and college students. But the biggest reason it is quieter in Thornton than in most places in America, is that there are just simply fewer people living here. If you think trees make good neighbors, Thornton may be for you.
Demographics
The population of Thornton overall has a level of education that is slightly above the US average for all US cities and towns of 21.84%. Of adults 25 and older in Thornton, 22.54% have at least a bachelor's degree.
The per capita income in Thornton in 2022 was $32,796, which is middle income relative to Illinois and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $131,184 for a family of four. However, Thornton contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
Thornton is an extremely ethnically-diverse village. The people who call Thornton home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Thornton residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Thornton also has a sizeable Hispanic population (people of Hispanic origin can be of any race). People of Hispanic or Latino origin account for 17.80% of the village’s residents. Important ancestries of people in Thornton include German, Irish, Polish, Italian, and English.
The most common language spoken in Thornton 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 Thornton, the neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
People
For many reasons, is rated by NeighborhoodScout as one of the top 0.5% of ideal neighborhoods for first-time home buyers in the state of Illinois. Homes here are priced below median housing values in the state, yet the neighborhood has a track record according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive neighborhood home appreciation rates of above average real estate appreciation over the last five years compared to other IL neighborhoods, protecting your investment in your first home, while simultaneously making it less risky for your lender. Not only does this neighborhood stand out for combining price and home value stability or increases, it also is a neighborhood with a high quality resident population according exclusive data, meaning this is likely a good place to buy, live, and enjoy. While many first time home buyers focus purely on low cost and convenient location, which can risk your investment in your first home and put you in a less than desirable neighborhood, this neighborhood is a true standout for a lot of reasons, and definitely worth a look if you are a first time home buyer.
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 Thornton are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 72.8% 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 52.8% 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, 38.4% 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 31.5% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (17.6%), and 12.5% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 88.5% of households. Some people also speak Spanish (9.9%).
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 neighborhood in Thornton, IL, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Mexican (12.4%). There are also a number of people of German ancestry (11.7%), and residents who report Irish roots (11.1%), and some of the residents are also of Polish ancestry (9.5%), along with some Sub-Saharan African ancestry residents (6.6%), 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 (30.2% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (75.8%) 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 (13.2%) and 5.6% of residents also take the train 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.
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.
