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.
Spruce Pine is a tiny town located in the state of Alabama. With a population of 215 people and just one neighborhood, Spruce Pine is the 377th largest community in Alabama.
Occupations and Workforce
Because occupations involving physical labor dominate the local economy, Spruce Pine is generally considered to be a blue-collar town. 62.50% of the Spruce Pine workforce is employed in blue-collar occupations, compared to the national average of 27.7%. Overall, Spruce Pine is a town of production and manufacturing workers, sales and office workers, and transportation and shipping workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Spruce Pine who work in sales jobs (18.75%), management occupations (12.50%), and healthcare (6.25%).
Setting & Lifestyle
Overall, Spruce Pine’s crime rate is one of the lowest in the nation, which makes a great place to live if safety is an important concern.
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!) Spruce Pine 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. Spruce Pine has few renters and college students. But the biggest reason it is quieter in Spruce Pine than in most places in America, is that there are just simply fewer people living here. If you think trees make good neighbors, Spruce Pine may be for you.
Compared to the rest of the country, citizens of Spruce Pine spend much less time in their cars: on average, their commute to work is only 14.30 minutes. This also means that noise and pollution levels in the town are less than they would otherwise be.
As is often the case in a small town, Spruce Pine doesn't have a public transportation system that people use for their commute.
Demographics
In terms of college education, Spruce Pine ranks among the least educated cities in the nation, as only 0.00% of people over 25 have a bachelor's degree or advanced degree.
The per capita income in Spruce Pine in 2022 was $22,359, which is lower middle income relative to Alabama, and low income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $89,436 for a family of four. However, Spruce Pine contains both very wealthy and poor people as well. Spruce Pine also has one of the higher rates of people living in poverty in the nation, with 36.70% of its population below the federal poverty line.
The people who call Spruce Pine home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Spruce Pine residents report their race to be White. Important ancestries of people in Spruce Pine include Swiss, Irish, Yugoslavian, Other West Indian, and West Indian.
The most common language spoken in Spruce Pine is English. Other important languages spoken here include Native American languages and Italian.
Notable & Unique Neighborhood Characteristics
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.
Occupations
More people work in manufacturing and as laborers here in the neighborhood than in 98.1% of the neighborhoods in America. Despite the loss of manufacturing jobs across the nation, this neighborhood remains a place where, compared to other parts of the country, you will find many laborers and manufacturers.
People
Of particular note, 2.4% of the people in the neighborhood currently reside in a correction facility, held due to punishment for a crime.
In addition, if you're nearing retirement age, or in retirement, the is an excellent choice for you to consider for top-quality retirement living. This neighborhood is rated by NeighborhoodScout as among the top 5.5% of retiree-friendly neighborhoods in Alabama, combining peace and quiet, safety from crime, and offering diverse housing options from which retirees can choose. Maybe it's because of these amenities that a large proportion of the residents here are college educated seniors, mixed with other age groups. For these and other reasons, NeighborhoodScout identifies this neighborhood as a top-notch place to consider if you are thinking of or planning to retire in Alabama.
Modes of Transportation
Our research shows that more people carpool to work here in the (22.5%) than in 95.4% 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 Spruce Pine are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 93.4% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 46.4% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 92.5% 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, 47.1% 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 28.1% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (18.6%), and 6.3% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 78.1% of households. Some people also speak Spanish (21.9%).
Ethnicity / Ancestry
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 Spruce Pine, AL, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Mexican (12.5%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (3.9%), and residents who report English roots (2.8%), and some of the residents are also of Scots-Irish ancestry (1.8%), along with some Cuban ancestry residents (1.5%), among others. In addition, 17.8% of the residents of this neighborhood were born in another country.
Getting to Work
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 under 15 minutes commuting one-way to work (43.5% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.
Here most residents (75.2%) 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 (22.5%) . 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.
