Appalachia is a very small town located in the state of Virginia. With a population of 1,376 people and just one neighborhood, Appalachia is the 250th largest community in Virginia.
Appalachia is neither predominantly blue-collar nor white-collar, instead having a mixed workforce of both blue-collar and white-collar jobs. Overall, Appalachia is a town of service providers, sales and office workers, and managers. There are especially a lot of people living in Appalachia who work in office and administrative support (18.33%), management occupations (16.14%), and personal care services (8.76%).
A relatively large number of people in Appalachia telecommute to their jobs. Overall, about 12.42% of the workforce works from home. While this may seem like a small number, as a fraction of the total workforce it ranks among the highest in the country. 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.
It is a fairly quiet town 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!) Appalachia 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. Appalachia has few renters and college students. But the biggest reason it is quieter in Appalachia than in most places in America, is that there are just simply fewer people living here. If you think trees make good neighbors, Appalachia may be for you.
Being a small town, Appalachia does not have a public transit system used by locals to get to and from work.
In terms of college education, Appalachia is nearly on par with the US average for all cities of 21.84%: 18.15% of adults 25 and older in Appalachia have a bachelor's degree or advanced degree.
The per capita income in Appalachia in 2022 was $23,969, which is low income relative to Virginia and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $95,876 for a family of four. However, Appalachia contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
Appalachia is a somewhat ethnically-diverse town. The people who call Appalachia home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Appalachia residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Important ancestries of people in Appalachia include English, German, Irish, Scottish, and Scots-Irish.
The most common language spoken in Appalachia is English. Other important languages spoken here include Polish and Spanish.
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.
It used to be that most Americans lived on the farm, or otherwise made their living from the land, the forests, or the sea. With global trade and an economy increasingly based on providing services to one another, fewer people farm, fish or harvest timber now than at any time in American history. But according to NeighborhoodScout's leading analysis, the neighborhood stands apart from most American neighborhood due to the proportion of its residents still working in these fields. With 3.6% of the workforce so employed, this neighborhood has a greater concentration of such workers than 95.4% of U.S. neighborhoods.
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 39 people per square mile living here, this neighborhood is less crowded than 91.1% of America.
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 Appalachia are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 94.1% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 34.5% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 85.9% 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, 29.9% of the working population is employed in executive, management, and professional occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations, with 26.6% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (23.9%), and 16.0% in manufacturing and laborer occupations.
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 99.2% of households.
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 Appalachia, VA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as English (20.4%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (16.1%), and residents who report German roots (11.2%), and some of the residents are also of Norwegian ancestry (2.5%), along with some Scottish ancestry residents (2.3%), 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 between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (34.4% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (84.4%) 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.