Hometown is a very small city located in the state of Illinois. With a population of 4,180 people and just one neighborhood, Hometown is the 379th largest community in Illinois.
Hometown is neither predominantly blue-collar nor white-collar, instead having a mixed workforce of both blue-collar and white-collar jobs. Overall, Hometown is a city of professionals, sales and office workers, and service providers. There are especially a lot of people living in Hometown who work in office and administrative support (12.54%), sales jobs (7.16%), and teaching (6.50%).
Of important note, Hometown is also a city of artists. Hometown has more artists, designers and people working in media than 90% of the communities in America. This concentration of artists helps shape Hometown’s character.
The overall crime rate in Hometown 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.
One downside of living in Hometown, however, is that residents on average have to contend with a long commute, spending on average 32.81 minutes every day commuting to work. However, local public transit is widely used. For those who would prefer to avoid driving entirely and leave their car at home, it may be an option to use the transit instead.
For a small city, Hometown has a lot of people who use public transit to get to work, and those that do mostly ride the bus. This suggests that a real need for low-cost transportation in Hometown exists, and local transit is helping to meet that need.
The percentage of adults in Hometown who are college-educated is close to the national average for all communities of 21.84%: 18.28% of the adults in Hometown have a bachelor's degree or advanced degree.
The per capita income in Hometown in 2022 was $28,736, which is lower middle income relative to Illinois and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $114,944 for a family of four. However, Hometown contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
Hometown is an extremely ethnically-diverse city. The people who call Hometown home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Hometown residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Hometown also has a sizeable Hispanic population (people of Hispanic origin can be of any race). People of Hispanic or Latino origin account for 31.82% of the city’s residents. Important ancestries of people in Hometown include Irish, German, Polish, Italian, and English.
The most common language spoken in Hometown is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Polish.
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.
Most neighborhoods have a mixture of ages of homes in them, from new to old, but this neighborhood stands out due to its concentration of residential real estate built in one time frame: from 1940 through 1969, generally considered older, well-established homes. This was a busy time in America for home construction. After the end of World War II, as GIs came home, bought newly built homes on the edges of cities with the help of the GI Bill, and began their families. This housing era generally coincides with the 'Baby Boom' generation (1945 - 1964), and many baby boomers grew up in homes built in this era. But what is so interesting about the neighborhood, is that an incredible 92.5% of the homes here were built in this era. So when you walk its streets or drive through, this neighborhood has a look and feel that harkens to that era in American life, a very important slice of Americana.
In addition, if you love row houses and attached homes, you will probably really like the neighborhood. The ambiance, the charm, of row houses is something special. And in sheer abundance of row houses, this neighborhood truly stands out. The real estate here has a higher proportion of row houses and attached homes than nearly any neighborhood in America. In fact, 62.8% of the residential real estate here is classified as row houses and attached homes.
The neighborhood stands out within Illinois 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 6.4% of college-friendly places to live in IL.
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Lithuanian and Austrian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 1.5% of this neighborhood's residents have Lithuanian ancestry and 1.3% have Austrian ancestry.
is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 14.3% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Polish at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 99.2% of the neighborhoods in America.
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 Hometown are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 70.7% of U.S. neighborhoods. In addition, 1.1% 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 78.6% 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, 32.0% of the working population is employed in executive, management, and professional occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is manufacturing and laborer occupations, with 31.9% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (20.5%), and 15.6% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
The languages spoken by people in this neighborhood are diverse. These are tabulated as the languages people preferentially speak when they are at home with their families. The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 76.9% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Polish.
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 Hometown, IL, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Mexican (24.9%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (24.4%), and residents who report German roots (17.9%), and some of the residents are also of Polish ancestry (12.0%), along with some Italian ancestry residents (11.1%), among others. In addition, 10.5% of the residents of this neighborhood were born in another country.
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 (28.7% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (71.8%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In addition, quite a number also ride the bus to get to work (8.3%) and 6.4% of residents also carpool with coworkers, friends, or neighbors for their daily commute. In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.