Colby is a somewhat small city located in the state of Kansas. With a population of 5,542 people and just one neighborhood, Colby is the 64th largest community in Kansas.
Colby is neither predominantly blue-collar nor white-collar, instead having a mixed workforce of both blue-collar and white-collar jobs. Overall, Colby is a city of sales and office workers, professionals, and service providers. There are especially a lot of people living in Colby who work in sales jobs (18.59%), office and administrative support (12.65%), and healthcare (9.64%).
Residents of the city have the good fortune of having one of the shortest daily commutes compared to the rest of the country. On average, they spend only 11.50 minutes getting to work every day.
Being a small city, Colby does not have a public transit system used by locals to get to and from work.
The population of Colby 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 Colby, 24.39% have at least a bachelor's degree.
The per capita income in Colby in 2022 was $31,570, which is middle income relative to Kansas and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $126,280 for a family of four. However, Colby contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
The people who call Colby home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Colby residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Important ancestries of people in Colby include German, Irish, English, Polish, and Italian.
The most common language spoken in Colby is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Italian.
When you see a neighborhood for the first time, the most important thing is often the way it looks, like its homes and its setting. Some places look the same, but they only reveal their true character after living in them for a while because they contain a unique mix of occupational or cultural groups. This neighborhood is very unique in some important ways, according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive exploration and analysis.
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. 82.2% 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 99.7% of U.S. neighborhoods. Less time commuting means more time for other things in life.
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Hungarian and German ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 2.3% of this neighborhood's residents have Hungarian ancestry and 36.2% have German ancestry.
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 Colby are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 60.8% of U.S. neighborhoods. In addition, 6.4% of the children seventeen and under living in this neighborhood are living below the federal poverty line, which is a lower rate of childhood poverty than is found in 60.2% of America'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, 31.6% of the working population is employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is executive, management, and professional occupations, with 31.1% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations (21.4%), and 14.2% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 92.3% of households. Some people also speak Spanish (5.9%).
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 Colby, KS, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (36.2%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (10.8%), and residents who report English roots (10.5%), and some of the residents are also of Mexican ancestry (7.6%), along with some Polish ancestry residents (3.6%), 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 (82.2% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.
Here most residents (85.5%) 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 (6.1%) . In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.