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.
Decatur is a very small town located in the state of Mississippi. With a population of 1,920 people and just one neighborhood, Decatur is the 124th largest community in Mississippi.
Occupations and Workforce
Decatur is neither predominantly blue-collar nor white-collar, instead having a mixed workforce of both blue-collar and white-collar jobs. Overall, Decatur is a town of professionals, sales and office workers, and service providers. There are especially a lot of people living in Decatur who work in healthcare (15.58%), office and administrative support (15.11%), and teaching (9.81%).
Of important note, Decatur is also a town of artists. Decatur has more artists, designers and people working in media than 90% of the communities in America. This concentration of artists helps shape Decatur’s character.
Setting & Lifestyle
Being a small town, Decatur does not have a public transit system used by locals to get to and from work.
Demographics
The percentage of adults in Decatur with college degrees is slightly lower than the national average of 21.84% for all communities. 15.94% of adults in Decatur have a bachelor's degree or advanced degree.
The per capita income in Decatur in 2022 was $17,700, which is low income relative to Mississippi and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $70,800 for a family of four. However, Decatur contains both very wealthy and poor people as well. Decatur also has one of the higher rates of people living in poverty in the nation, with 37.28% of its population below the federal poverty line.
Decatur is an extremely ethnically-diverse town. The people who call Decatur home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Decatur residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Important ancestries of people in Decatur include Irish, English, German, Italian, and Scots-Irish.
The most common language spoken in Decatur is English. Other important languages spoken here include Polish and French.
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
The neighborhood stands out nationally for having a greater proportion of its residents active in the military than 98.2% of other U.S. neighborhoods. If you come here, you will notice military people active in their jobs, going to and from work, and in plain clothes out and about the neighborhood.
People
NeighborhoodScout's analysis shows that the neighborhood has a greater concentration of residents currently enrolled in college than 97.7% of the neighborhoods in the U.S. With 20.1% of the population here attending college, this is very much a college-focused neighborhood.
In addition, there is an especially high percentage of incarcerated people (1.1%) living in the neighborhood.
Also, the neighborhood stands out within Mississippi 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 9.5% of college-friendly places to live in MS.
Diversity
Significantly, 6.9% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Native American languages at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 99.7% 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 Decatur are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 84.7% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 38.2% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 87.9% 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, 36.1% 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 30.5% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (18.3%), and 15.1% 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 English, spoken by 98.8% of households. Some people also speak Native American languages (6.9%).
Ethnicity / Ancestry
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 Decatur, MS, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Irish (7.9%). There are also a number of people of English ancestry (2.3%), and residents who report German roots (2.2%), and some of the residents are also of Scots-Irish ancestry (1.3%), along with some Italian ancestry residents (1.2%), 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 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (39.6% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (77.1%) 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 (17.6%) . 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.
