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.
Waubay is a tiny city located in the state of South Dakota. With a population of 475 people and just one neighborhood, Waubay is the 117th largest community in South Dakota. Much of the housing stock in Waubay was built prior to World War II, making it one of the older and more historic cities in the country.
Occupations and Workforce
Unlike some cities, Waubay isn’t mainly white- or blue-collar. Instead, the most prevalent occupations for people in Waubay are a mix of both white- and blue-collar jobs. Overall, Waubay is a city of service providers, professionals, and managers. There are especially a lot of people living in Waubay who work in maintenance occupations (19.14%), teaching (16.05%), and management occupations (15.43%).
Setting & Lifestyle
Another notable thing is that Waubay is a major vacation destination. Much of the city’s population is seasonal: many people own second homes and only live there part-time, during the vacation season. The effect on the local economy is that many of the businesses are dependent on tourist dollars, and may operate only during the high season. As the vacation season ends, Waubay’s population drops significantly, such that year-round residents will notice that the city is a much quieter place to live.
Residents will find that the city 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, Waubay is worth considering.
As is often the case in a small city, Waubay doesn't have a public transportation system that people use for their commute.
Demographics
The percentage of people in Waubay who are college-educated is somewhat higher than the average US community of 21.84%: 27.16% of adults in Waubay have at least a bachelor's degree.
The per capita income in Waubay in 2022 was $27,079, which is low income relative to South Dakota, and lower middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $108,316 for a family of four. However, Waubay contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
Waubay is an extremely ethnically-diverse city. The people who call Waubay home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Waubay residents report their race to be White, followed by Native American. Important ancestries of people in Waubay include German, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian, and African.
The most common language spoken in Waubay is English. Other important languages spoken here include Native American languages and Polish.
Notable & Unique Neighborhood Characteristics
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.
Real Estate
Vacant homes and apartments are a significant characteristic of this neighborhood. In fact, with 48.2% of the residential real estate vacant, the neighborhood claims the distinction of having a higher vacancy rate than 98.6% of the neighborhoods in America. This can either be because much of the property is seasonally occupied, like in many vacation areas, or that much of the real estate is more permanently abandoned.
In addition, 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 5 people per square mile living here, this neighborhood is less crowded than 98.2% of America.
Occupations
Each year, fewer and fewer Americans make their living as farmers, foresters, or fishers. But the neighborhood truly stands out among U.S. neighborhoods. According to exclusive NeighborhoodScout analysis, this neighborhood has a greater proportion of farmers, foresters, or fishers than 96.5% of all American neighborhoods. This is truly a unique cultural characteristic of this neighborhood.
Diversity
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Norwegian and Native American ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 22.7% of this neighborhood's residents have Norwegian ancestry and 21.8% have Native American ancestry.
is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 12.1% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Polish 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 Waubay are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 69.6% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 13.7% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 58.4% 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, 39.6% of the working population is employed in executive, management, and professional occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants, with 22.3% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations (21.0%), and 12.6% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 99.0% of households. Some people also speak Polish (12.1%).
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 Waubay, SD, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (29.7%). There are also a number of people of Norwegian ancestry (22.7%), and residents who report Native American roots (21.8%), and some of the residents are also of Polish ancestry (20.5%), along with some English ancestry residents (4.5%), among others.
Getting to Work
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 (41.9% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.
Here most residents (74.4%) 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 (7.5%) and 5.8% of residents also hop out the door and walk to work 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.
