Melville is a tiny town located in the state of Louisiana. With a population of 751 people and just one neighborhood, Melville is the 261st largest community in Louisiana.
Unlike some towns where white-collar or blue-collar occupations dominate the local economy, Melville is neither predominantly one nor the other. Instead, it has a mixed workforce of both white- and blue-collar jobs. Overall, Melville is a town of service providers, construction workers and builders, and sales and office workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Melville who work in healthcare suport services (15.49%), office and administrative support (12.83%), and management occupations (7.08%).
Telecommuters are a relatively large percentage of the workforce: 14.16% of people work from home. While this number may seem small overall, as a fraction of the total workforce it is high relative to the nation. These workers are often telecommuters who work in knowledge-based, white-collar professions. For example, Silicon Valley has large numbers of people who telecommute. Other at-home workers may be self-employed people who operate small businesses out of their homes.
Residents will find that the town 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, Melville is worth considering.
One downside of living in Melville is that it can take a long time to commute to work. In Melville, the average commute to work is 31.93 minutes, which is quite a bit higher than the national average. On the other hand, local public transit is widely used in the town, so leaving the car at home and taking transit is often a viable alternative.
Despite the fact that it is a small town, Melville has quite a few people who take public transportation – mostly the bus - for their daily commute to work. This helps to fill a real need in the town for affordable transportation.
The population of Melville has a very low overall level of education: only 7.32% of people over 25 hold a 4-year college degree or higher.
The per capita income in Melville in 2022 was $15,966, which is low income relative to Louisiana and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $63,864 for a family of four. Melville also has one of the higher rates of people living in poverty in the nation, with 41.43% of its population below the federal poverty line.
Melville is an extremely ethnically-diverse town. The people who call Melville home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Melville residents report their race to be Black or African-American, followed by White. Important ancestries of people in Melville include French Canadian, German, French, English, and Italian.
The most common language spoken in Melville is English. Other important languages spoken here include Italian and French.
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.
Uncrowded roads, rural America and space to be the individual you are. If you like these characteristics, this neighborhood may fit you. With just 12 residents per square mile, is less crowded than 96.6% of all U.S. neighborhoods. One of the notable things about is that it is one of the quietest neighborhoods in America, according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis and quantitative rating of quietness. When you are here, you will find it to be very quiet. If quiet and peaceful are your cup of tea, you may have found a great place for you.
Regardless of the means by which residents commute, this neighborhood has a length of commute that is notable. Long commutes can be brutal. They take time, money, and energy, leaving less of you for yourself and your family. The residents of the neighborhood unfortunately have the distinction of having, on average, a longer commute than most any neighborhood in America. 10.3% of commuters here travel more than one hour just one-way to work. That is more than two hours per day. This percentage with two-hour + round-trip commutes is higher than NeighborhoodScout found in 95.7% of all neighborhoods in America.
If you're looking for a great spot to raise a family, then look no further than the neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's analysis found that the combination of good quality public schools, above-average safety from crime, and a high rate of home ownership in predominantly single-family homes, help make this neighborhood among the top 11.0% of family-friendly neighborhoods across the state of Louisiana. In addition, there are a high proportion of other families with school-aged children living here, making it easy for parents and their children to socialize and develop a sense of community support. In addition, families here highly value education, as is reflected by the strength of the local schools, in part due to the educational attainment of the parents here, who vote in support of the public schools.
Did you know that the neighborhood has more French Canadian and Belgian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 14.7% of this neighborhood's residents have French Canadian ancestry and 1.6% have Belgian ancestry.
is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 15.8% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Italian at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 99.3% of the neighborhoods in America.
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 Melville are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 94.4% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 35.0% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 85.6% 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, 28.2% 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 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 (22.2%), and 21.6% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 98.2% of households. Some people also speak Italian (15.8%).
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 Melville, LA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as French Canadian (14.7%). There are also a number of people of French ancestry (10.6%), and residents who report English roots (7.3%), and some of the residents are also of German ancestry (2.9%), along with some Sub-Saharan African ancestry residents (2.6%), 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 neighborhood spend under 15 minutes commuting one-way to work (25.4% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America. However, there is also a significant group of residents (10.3%) who commute over an hour in each direction.
Here most residents (86.9%) 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.