Buffalo is a tiny town located in the state of South Dakota. With a population of 356 people and just one neighborhood, Buffalo is the 125th largest community in South Dakota.
When you are in Buffalo, you'll notice that it is more blue-collar than most other communities in America. 46.57% of Buffalo’s employed work in blue-collar jobs, while America averages only 27.7% that do. Overall, Buffalo is a town of transportation and shipping workers, construction workers and builders, and managers. There are especially a lot of people living in Buffalo who work in management occupations (11.76%), food service (8.33%), and sales jobs (7.35%).
A relatively large number of people in Buffalo telecommute to their jobs. Overall, about 8.33% 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.
Overall, Buffalo’s crime rate is one of the lowest in the nation, which makes a great place to live if safety is an important concern.
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!) Buffalo 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. Buffalo has few renters and college students. But the biggest reason it is quieter in Buffalo than in most places in America, is that there are just simply fewer people living here. If you think trees make good neighbors, Buffalo may be for you.
Residents of the town have the good fortune of having one of the shortest daily commutes compared to the rest of the country. On average, they spend only 12.02 minutes getting to work every day.
Buffalo is a small town, and as such doesn't have a public transit system that people use to get to and from their jobs every day.
The education level of Buffalo citizens is a little higher than the average for US cities and towns: 24.30% of adults in Buffalo have at least a bachelor's degree.
The per capita income in Buffalo in 2022 was $45,151, which is wealthy relative to South Dakota and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $180,604 for a family of four. However, Buffalo contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
The people who call Buffalo home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Buffalo residents report their race to be White. Important ancestries of people in Buffalo include German, Norwegian, Irish, Scandinavian, and English.
The most common language spoken in Buffalo is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and French.
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.
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 0 people per square mile living here, this neighborhood is less crowded than 99.6% of America.
Each year, fewer and fewer Americans make their living as farmers, foresters, or fishers. But the neighborhood truly stands out among U.S. neighborhoods. According to exclusive NeighborhoodScout analysis, this neighborhood has a greater proportion of farmers, foresters, or fishers than 98.7% of all American neighborhoods. This is truly a unique cultural characteristic of this neighborhood.
We Americans love our cars. Not only are they a necessity for most Americans due to the shape of our neighborhoods and the distances between where we live, work, shop, and go to school, but we also fancy them. As a result, most households in America have one, two, or three cars. But NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis shows that the neighborhood has a highly unusual pattern of car ownership. Residents of this neighborhood must really love automobiles. NeighborhoodScout's Analysis reveals that 38.6% of the households here have four, five, or more cars. That is more cars per household than in 97.7% of the neighborhoods in the nation.
Whether walking, biking, riding, or driving, the length of one's commute is an important factor for one's quality of life. The neighborhood stands out for its commute length, according to NeighborhoodScout's analysis. Residents of the neighborhood have the pleasure of having one of the shortest commutes to work of any neighborhood in America. 63.4% 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 97.1% of U.S. neighborhoods. Less time commuting means more time for other things in life.
If you are planning to retire in South Dakota, this neighborhood should be on your must-see list. For many reasons, may be considered a retiree's dream neighborhood. According to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis and metrics, it's peaceful and quiet, has above average safety from crime compared to other neighborhoods in South Dakota, while also offering a diverse range of housing options. This, along with the vibrant mix of very educated seniors and other age groups who choose to live here, makes the neighborhood more retiree-friendly than 96.7% of neighborhoods in SD. If a South Dakota retirement is in your future, this neighborhood should be one of the places you visit.
In the neighborhood, many people's commute means walking from the bedroom to the home office. NeighborhoodScout's analysis found that 29.2% of residents worked from home. This may not seem like a large number, but Scout's research shows that this is a higher percentage of people working from home than 96.4% of the neighborhoods in America. Often people who work from home are engaged in the creative or technological economy, such as is found in areas around Boston, and in Silicon Valley. Other times, people may be engaged in other businesses like trading stocks from home, or running a small beauty salon.
Also, more people in choose to walk to work each day (10.7%) than almost any neighborhood in America. If you are attracted to the idea of being able to walk to work, this neighborhood could be a good choice.
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Belgian and Norwegian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 3.9% of this neighborhood's residents have Belgian ancestry and 22.5% have Norwegian ancestry.
is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 1.4% 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 98.4% 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 Buffalo are middle-income, making it a moderate income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 49.4% of the neighborhoods in America. In addition, 1.3% 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 77.9% 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, 47.9% 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 23.5% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (12.1%), and 9.0% in farming, forestry, or commercial fishing.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 97.1% 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 Buffalo, SD, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (25.7%). There are also a number of people of Norwegian ancestry (22.5%), and residents who report Irish roots (13.9%), and some of the residents are also of English ancestry (6.6%), along with some Belgian ancestry residents (3.9%), among others.
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 (63.4% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.
Here most residents (47.6%) 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 (12.4%) and 10.7% of residents also hop out the door and walk to work 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.
