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.
Porter - Hiram is a very small town located in the state of Maine. With a population of 3,315 people and just one neighborhood, Porter - Hiram is the 142nd largest community in Maine.
Occupations and Workforce
When you are in Porter - Hiram, you'll notice that it is more blue-collar than most other communities in America. 40.23% of Porter - Hiram’s employed work in blue-collar jobs, while America averages only 27.7% that do. Overall, Porter - Hiram is a town of construction workers and builders, service providers, and sales and office workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Porter - Hiram who work in office and administrative support (10.80%), management occupations (9.46%), and food service (7.06%).
A relatively large number of people in Porter - Hiram telecommute to their jobs. Overall, about 8.29% 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
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!) Porter - Hiram 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. Porter - Hiram has few renters and college students. But the biggest reason it is quieter in Porter - Hiram than in most places in America, is that there are just simply fewer people living here. If you think trees make good neighbors, Porter - Hiram may be for you.
In Porter - Hiram, however, the average commute to work is quite long. On average, people spend 31.25 minutes each day getting to work, which is significantly higher than the national average.
Demographics
The education level of Porter - Hiram citizens, measured as those with bachelor's degrees or advanced degrees, is similar to the national average for all American cities and towns. 18.42% of adults 25 and older in Porter - Hiram have a college degree.
The per capita income in Porter - Hiram in 2022 was $27,308, which is low income relative to Maine, and lower middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $109,232 for a family of four. However, Porter - Hiram contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
Porter - Hiram is a somewhat ethnically-diverse town. The people who call Porter - Hiram home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Porter - Hiram residents report their race to be White, followed by Asian. Important ancestries of people in Porter - Hiram include English, Irish, French, German, and Italian.
The most common language spoken in Porter - Hiram is English. Other important languages spoken here include Italian and Spanish.
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.
Diversity
Did you know that the neighborhood has more French Canadian and French ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 3.3% of this neighborhood's residents have French Canadian ancestry and 7.9% have French 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 Porter - Hiram are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 73.9% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 17.2% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 64.2% of U.S. neighborhoods.
A neighborhood is far different if it is dominated by enlisted military personnel rather than people who earn their living by farming. It is also different if most of the neighbors are clerical support or managers. What is wonderful is the sheer diversity of neighborhoods, allowing you to find the type that fits your lifestyle and aspirations.
In the neighborhood, 37.9% 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 25.6% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (18.9%), and 15.2% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 96.4% of households. Some people also speak Italian (5.9%).
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 Porter - Hiram, ME, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as English (19.6%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (10.6%), and residents who report French roots (7.9%), and some of the residents are also of German ancestry (6.3%), along with some Italian ancestry residents (5.8%), among others.
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 between 45 minutes and one hour commuting one-way to work (27.3% of working residents), longer and tougher than most commutes in America.
Here most residents (70.2%) 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 (20.0%) . 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.
