Boykin is a tiny town located in the state of Alabama. With a population of 208 people and just one neighborhood, Boykin is the 378th largest community in Alabama.
Boykin is neither predominantly blue-collar nor white-collar, instead having a mixed workforce of both blue-collar and white-collar jobs. Overall, Boykin is a town of service providers, sales and office workers, and production and manufacturing workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Boykin who work in maintenance occupations (29.57%), sales jobs (20.87%), and personal care services (12.17%).
Another notable thing is that Boykin 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, Boykin’s population drops significantly, such that year-round residents will notice that the city is a much quieter place to live.
Boykin’s overall crime rate ranks among the lowest in the nation, making it a very safe place to live.
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!) Boykin 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. Boykin has few renters and college students. But the biggest reason it is quieter in Boykin than in most places in America, is that there are just simply fewer people living here. If you think trees make good neighbors, Boykin may be for you.
One downside of living in Boykin, however, is that residents on average have to contend with a long commute, spending on average 41.92 minutes every day commuting to work.
Boykin 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 population of Boykin has one of the lowest overall levels of education in the country: only 0.00% of people over 25 hold a college degree. The national average for all municipalities is 21.84%.
The per capita income in Boykin in 2022 was $12,303, which is low income relative to Alabama and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $49,212 for a family of four.
The people who call Boykin home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Boykin residents report their race to be Black or African-American, followed by White. Important ancestries of people in Boykin include German, English, Yugoslavian, Other West Indian, and West Indian.
The most common language spoken in Boykin is English. Other important languages spoken here include African languages and Arabic.
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.
One of the unique characteristics of the neighborhood revealed by analysis is that the per capita income of residents here is lower than that found in 99.6% of the neighborhoods in America. The neighborhood also has a greater percentage of children living in poverty (65.8%) than found in 98.0% of all U.S. neighborhoods. Children living in poverty is one of the challenges facing America, and the world, and in this neighborhood in particular, the problem can be considered acute.
In addition, single parenting is hard. But you don't have to tell the neighborhood about it; they already know. 24.6% of this neighborhood's households are run by single mothers, which is a higher concentration than NeighborhoodScout found in 98.7% of American neighborhoods. Further NeighborhoodScout research showed strong statistical correlations among high rates of children living in single parent households, and neighborhood crime, particularly violent crime, neighborhood poverty, and, importantly, the percentage of low weight births and rates of infant mortality.
Also, neighborhoodScout's exclusive research revealed that 96.6% of the adult residents in the neighborhood do not have a 4-year college degree, which is a lower rate of college graduated adults than found in 98.2% of the neighborhoods in America.
Finally, the neighborhood stands out within Alabama for its college student friendly environment. NeighborhoodScout's analysis reveals that this neighborhood is home to a number of college students, is relatively walkable, and above average in safety. In combination, this makes it stand out for a good place for college students to consider. Because a number of college students live here, this neighborhood may be close to a college campus and offer certain amenities nearby geared towards the student body. While it's not an environment for everyone, ambitious scholars can enjoy seasonal excitement between semesters and school breaks, and parents can rest easy knowing that the area has an above average safety rating. For each of these reasons, the neighborhood is rated among the top 7.1% of college-friendly places to live in AL.
The neighborhood stands out for having the majority of its residential real estate made up of mobile homes. In fact, 55.2% of the occupied real estate here are mobile homes, which is a greater proportion than is found in 99.4% of the neighborhoods in the U.S. If you like mobile homes, this might be a great neighborhood in which to look for real estate.
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 8 people per square mile living here, this neighborhood is less crowded than 97.5% of America.
Furthermore, despite all of the residential real estate here in the neighborhood, NeighborhoodScout has discovered that much of it is vacant. In resort or second-home vacation areas, this naturally occurs because homes and apartments are seasonally occupied, and empty for a portion of the year. In non-vacation or resort areas, however, this can be an indicator of property abandonment or a weak real estate market. The vacancy rate here is 35.9%, which is higher than 96.9% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
NeighborhoodScout's exclusive research identifies the neighborhood as having one of the highest concentrations of people employed in manufacturing or as laborers of any neighborhood in America. In fact, despite the loss of manufacturing jobs nationally, this neighborhood has 52.5% of its working residents employed in such fields, which is a higher proportion than 99.3% of American neighborhoods.
Whether walking, biking, riding, or driving, the length of one's commute is an important factor for one's quality of life. The neighborhood stands out for its commute length, according to NeighborhoodScout's analysis. 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. 17.1% 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 99.2% of all neighborhoods in America.
The freedom of moving to new places versus the comfort of home. How much and how often people move not only can create diverse and worldly neighborhoods, but simultaneously it can produce a loss of intimacy with one's surroundings and a lack of connectedness to one's neighbors. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive research has identified this neighborhood as unique with regard to the transience of its populace. More residents of the neighborhood live here today that also were living in this same neighborhood five years ago than is found in 98.3% 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 Boykin are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 99.6% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 65.8% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 98.0% 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, 52.5% of the working population is employed in manufacturing and laborer 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 22.4% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (21.5%), and 3.6% in executive, management, and professional occupations.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 98.1% of households.
Ethnicity / Ancestry
Boston's Beacon Hill blue-blood streets, Brooklyn's Orthodox Jewish enclaves, Los Angeles' Persian neighborhoods. Each has its own culture derived primarily from the ancestries and culture of the residents who call these neighborhoods home. Likewise, each neighborhood in America has its own culture – some more unique than others – based on lifestyle, occupations, the types of households – and importantly – on the ethnicities and ancestries of the people who live in the neighborhood. Understanding where people came from, who their grandparents or great-grandparents were, can help you understand how a neighborhood is today.
In the neighborhood in Boykin, AL, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Sub-Saharan African (3.1%). There are also a number of people of African ancestry (3.1%).
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 45 minutes and one hour commuting one-way to work (50.2% of working residents), longer and tougher than most commutes in America.
Here most residents (86.9%) 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 (7.6%) . In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.
