This is a small community in a single neighborhood.
As throughout the site, some neighborhood-level data are reserved for subscribers.
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.
Elkhart is a very small city located in the state of Iowa. With a population of 1,041 people and just one neighborhood, Elkhart is the 364th largest community in Iowa. Much of the housing stock in Elkhart was built relatively recently. The construction of new real estate can often be taken as an indication that the local Elkhart economy is robust, and that jobs or other amenities are attracting an influx of new residents. This seems to be the case in Elkhart, where the median household income is $73,636.00.
Elkhart real estate is some of the most expensive in Iowa, although Elkhart house values don't compare to the most expensive real estate in the U.S.
Occupations and Workforce
When you are in Elkhart, you'll notice that it is more blue-collar than most other communities in America. 37.72% of Elkhart’s employed work in blue-collar jobs, while America averages only 27.7% that do. Overall, Elkhart is a city of service providers, managers, and construction workers and builders. There are especially a lot of people living in Elkhart who work in office and administrative support (11.07%), management occupations (8.65%), and business and financial occupations (8.30%).
Also of interest is that Elkhart has more people living here who work in computers and math than 95% of the places in the US.
A relatively large number of people in Elkhart telecommute to their jobs. Overall, about 13.49% 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.
Setting & Lifestyle
The overall crime rate in Elkhart 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.
As is often the case in a small city, Elkhart doesn't have a public transportation system that people use for their commute.
Demographics
The population of Elkhart overall has a level of education that is slightly above the US average for all US cities and towns of 21.84%. Of adults 25 and older in Elkhart, 23.99% have at least a bachelor's degree.
The per capita income in Elkhart in 2022 was $33,211, which is middle income relative to Iowa and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $132,844 for a family of four. However, Elkhart contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
The people who call Elkhart home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Elkhart residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Important ancestries of people in Elkhart include German, Irish, Swedish, Norwegian, and French.
The most common language spoken in Elkhart is English. Other important languages spoken here include Italian and Polish.
Notable & Unique Neighborhood Characteristics
Many things matter about a neighborhood, but the first thing most people notice is the way a neighborhood looks and its particular character. For example, one might notice whether the buildings all date from a certain time period or whether shop signs are in multiple languages. This particular neighborhood in Elkhart, the neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
People
According to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis, is among the best neighborhoods for families in Iowa. In fact, this neighborhood is more family-friendly than 98.4% of neighborhoods in the entire state of Iowa. Its combination of top public schools, low crime rates, and owner-occupied single family homes gives this area the look and feel of a "Leave It to Beaver" episode. Many other families also live here, making it easy to socialize and develop a strong sense of community. In addition, the high number of college-educated parents influences the academic success of the local schools. Overall, you will find all of the amenities a family needs to thrive in the neighborhood. In addition to being an excellent choice for families with school-aged children, this neighborhood is also a very good choice for highly educated executives and urban sophisticates.
In addition, astoundingly, NeighborhoodScout's research reveals that this single neighborhood has a higher concentration of married couples living here than 98.0% of all U.S. neighborhoods. Whether they have school-aged children or not, married couples are the rule in the neighborhood. If you are a married couple, you may find many people here with a similar lifestyle, and perhaps common interests. But if you are single, you might not find many other singles here.
Real Estate
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 95.7% of neighborhoods in America.
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 44 people per square mile living here, this neighborhood is less crowded than 90.2% of America.
Diversity
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Swiss and Dutch ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 2.6% of this neighborhood's residents have Swiss ancestry and 5.0% have Dutch ancestry.
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 Elkhart are wealthy, making it among the 15% highest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 91.1% of the neighborhoods in America. In addition, 1.7% 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 76.4% 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, 49.7% 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 20.0% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations (17.1%), and 11.3% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 96.9% 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 Elkhart, IA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (37.1%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (12.9%), and residents who report Norwegian roots (8.8%), and some of the residents are also of English ancestry (8.8%), along with some Dutch ancestry residents (5.0%), 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 between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (49.8% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (75.5%) 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.
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.
