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.
Van Buren - Grand Isle is a very small town located in the state of Maine. With a population of 2,417 people and just one neighborhood, Van Buren - Grand Isle is the 193rd largest community in Maine.
Occupations and Workforce
Unlike some towns, Van Buren - Grand Isle isn’t mainly white- or blue-collar. Instead, the most prevalent occupations for people in Van Buren - Grand Isle are a mix of both white- and blue-collar jobs. Overall, Van Buren - Grand Isle is a town of service providers, professionals, and sales and office workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Van Buren - Grand Isle who work in office and administrative support (16.31%), healthcare suport services (13.12%), and healthcare (11.70%).
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!) Van Buren - Grand Isle 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. Van Buren - Grand Isle has few renters and college students. But the biggest reason it is quieter in Van Buren - Grand Isle than in most places in America, is that there are just simply fewer people living here. If you think trees make good neighbors, Van Buren - Grand Isle may be for you.
Compared to the rest of the country, citizens of Van Buren - Grand Isle spend much less time in their cars: on average, their commute to work is only 18.48 minutes. This also means that noise and pollution levels in the town are less than they would otherwise be.
Being a small town, Van Buren - Grand Isle does not have a public transit system used by locals to get to and from work.
Demographics
The population of Van Buren - Grand Isle has a very low overall level of education: only 9.41% of people over 25 hold a 4-year college degree or higher.
The per capita income in Van Buren - Grand Isle in 2022 was $33,586, which is lower middle income relative to Maine, and middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $134,344 for a family of four. However, Van Buren - Grand Isle contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
The people who call Van Buren - Grand Isle home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Van Buren - Grand Isle residents report their race to be White, followed by Asian. Important ancestries of people in Van Buren - Grand Isle include French, French Canadian, English, Irish, and German.
The most common language spoken in Van Buren - Grand Isle is French. Other important languages spoken here include English and Italian.
Notable & Unique Neighborhood Characteristics
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.
Occupations
It used to be that most Americans lived on the farm, or otherwise made their living from the land, the forests, or the sea. With global trade and an economy increasingly based on providing services to one another, fewer people farm, fish or harvest timber now than at any time in American history. But according to NeighborhoodScout's leading analysis, the neighborhood stands apart from most American neighborhood due to the proportion of its residents still working in these fields. With 5.2% of the workforce so employed, this neighborhood has a greater concentration of such workers than 97.2% of U.S. neighborhoods.
Length of Commute
Regardless of the means by which residents commute, this neighborhood has a length of commute that is notable. Residents of the neighborhood have the pleasure of having one of the shortest commutes to work of any neighborhood in America. 59.1% of the residents have a commute time from home to work (one way) of less than fifteen minutes. This is a higher proportion of residents enjoying a short trip to work than NeighborhoodScout found in 95.7% of U.S. neighborhoods. Less time commuting means more time for other things in life.
Real Estate
Unpopulated, and rural, the neighborhood is one of the least crowded neighborhoods in all of America. If you like open space, no traffic, and lots of room, this neighborhood may be just what you are looking for. According to NeighborhoodScout's leading research, this neighborhood is less densely populated than 91.8% of the neighborhoods in America.
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, 19.8% of this neighborhood's residents have French Canadian ancestry and 28.3% have French ancestry.
is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 52.9% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak French at home. This is a higher percentage than 100.0% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
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 Van Buren - Grand Isle are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 94.5% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 26.4% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 77.9% of U.S. neighborhoods.
What we choose to do for a living reflects who we are. Each neighborhood has a different mix of occupations represented, and together these tell you about the neighborhood and help you understand if this neighborhood may fit your lifestyle.
In the neighborhood, 29.4% of the working population is employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is executive, management, and professional occupations, with 27.8% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations (23.2%), and 14.4% in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is French, spoken by 52.9% of households. Some people also speak English (46.4%).
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 Van Buren - Grand Isle, ME, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as French (28.3%). There are also a number of people of French Canadian ancestry (19.8%), and residents who report English roots (5.2%), and some of the residents are also of Irish ancestry (3.3%), along with some German ancestry residents (2.5%), among others. In addition, 10.3% of the residents of this neighborhood were born in another country.
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 under 15 minutes commuting one-way to work (59.1% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.
Here most residents (81.3%) 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 (8.4%) . 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.
