Iron Belt is a tiny town located in the state of Wisconsin. With a population of 158 people and just one neighborhood, Iron Belt is the 511th largest community in Wisconsin.
When you are in Iron Belt, you'll notice that it is more blue-collar than most other communities in America. 52.54% of Iron Belt’s employed work in blue-collar jobs, while America averages only 27.7% that do. Overall, Iron Belt is a town of production and manufacturing workers, sales and office workers, and construction workers and builders. There are especially a lot of people living in Iron Belt who work in community and social services (11.86%), office and administrative support (10.17%), and sales jobs (8.47%).
Another notable thing is that Iron Belt is a major vacation destination. Much of the town’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, Iron Belt’s population drops significantly, such that year-round residents will notice that the city is a much quieter place to live.
The overall crime rate in Iron Belt is one of the lowest in the US. This makes it one of the safer places to live in the country in terms of crime.
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!) Iron Belt 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. Iron Belt has few renters and college students. But the biggest reason it is quieter in Iron Belt than in most places in America, is that there are just simply fewer people living here. If you think trees make good neighbors, Iron Belt may be for you.
Iron Belt is very much a car-oriented town. This is because the population of Iron Belt isn't large enough or dense enough to support an extensive public transit system. It has a lot of rural roads, and the distance between houses can be quite large, which together tends to discourage walking and bicycling to work. 96.61% of residents commute to work in their own car (and the drive is typically to a job out of town). People also tend to drive out of town for other services as well, such as shopping, doctors appointments, and more.
Iron Belt is a small town, and as such doesn't have a public transit system that people use to get to and from their jobs every day.
The citizens of Iron Belt have a very low rate of college education: just 7.14% of people over 25 have a bachelor's degree or advanced degree, compared to a national average of 21.84% for all cities.
The per capita income in Iron Belt in 2022 was $32,851, which is lower middle income relative to Wisconsin, and middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $131,404 for a family of four. However, Iron Belt contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
The people who call Iron Belt home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Iron Belt residents report their race to be White. Important ancestries of people in Iron Belt include Finnish, German, Polish, Italian, and Slovak.
The most common language spoken in Iron Belt is English. Other important languages spoken here include Italian and Polish.
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.
Unpopulated, and rural, the neighborhood is one of the least crowded neighborhoods in all of America. If you like open space, no traffic, and lots of room, this neighborhood may be just what you are looking for. According to NeighborhoodScout's leading research, this neighborhood is less densely populated than 98.7% of the neighborhoods in America. 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.
In addition, owner-occupied real estate dominates the neighborhood. In fact, according to NeighborhoodScout research, the percentage of residential real estate occupied by its owner is higher here than in 96.9% of neighborhoods in America. Vacant homes and apartments are a significant characteristic of this neighborhood. In fact, with 34.9% of the residential real estate vacant, the neighborhood claims the distinction of having a higher vacancy rate than 96.9% 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.
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Finnish and French Canadian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 21.0% of this neighborhood's residents have Finnish ancestry and 5.7% have French Canadian ancestry.
is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 1.1% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Native American languages at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 97.7% of the neighborhoods in America.
Some neighborhoods have more internal cohesiveness than others. While other neighborhoods feel like a collection of strangers who just happen to live near each other. Sometimes this comes down to not only the personalities of the people in a place, but how long people have been together in that neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research has revealed some interesting things about the rootedness of people in the neighborhood. More residents of the neighborhood live here today that also were living in this same neighborhood five years ago than is found in 95.4% of U.S. neighborhoods. This neighborhood is really made up of people who know each other, don't move often, and have lived here in this very neighborhood for quite a while.
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 Iron Belt are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 63.4% of U.S. neighborhoods. In addition, 1.4% 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 76.9% 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, 35.3% 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 32.7% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (15.5%), and 13.7% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 98.8% 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 Iron Belt, WI, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (25.6%). There are also a number of people of Finnish ancestry (21.0%), and residents who report Irish roots (11.4%), and some of the residents are also of Italian ancestry (8.6%), along with some Polish ancestry residents (8.4%), 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 (36.4% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.
Here most residents (86.1%) 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 (8.2%) . In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.