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.
Grafton is a tiny city located in the state of Illinois. With a population of 765 people and just one neighborhood, Grafton is the 730th largest community in Illinois. There's nothing like the smell of a brand new house, and in Grafton, you'll find that a large proportion of houses were recently built. New growth in residential real estate is an indication that people are choosing to move to Grafton, and putting down their money on brand new construction. Grafton’s real estate is, on average, some of the newest in the nation. Grafton does seem to be experiencing an influx of affluent people, because the median household income is $93,250.00.
Occupations and Workforce
Grafton is neither predominantly blue-collar nor white-collar, instead having a mixed workforce of both blue-collar and white-collar jobs. Overall, Grafton is a city of managers, professionals, and construction workers and builders. There are especially a lot of people living in Grafton who work in management occupations (16.09%), healthcare (13.91%), and business and financial occupations (13.48%).
A relatively large number of people in Grafton telecommute to their jobs. Overall, about 33.92% 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
Because of many things, Grafton is a great place for families with children to consider. First of all, many other families with children live here, making Grafton a place where both parents and children are more likely to develop social ties with other families, as well as find family-oriented services and community. The city’s good public school district and large population of college-educated adults provide an environment conducive to academic values. With regard to real estate, Grafton has a high rate of owner-occupied single family homes, which tends to reflect stability in the local community. Finally, Grafton’s overall crime rate is lower than average for the country.
In Grafton, however, the average commute to work is quite long. On average, people spend 35.40 minutes each day getting to work, which is significantly higher than the national average.
Grafton is a small city, and as such doesn't have a public transit system that people use to get to and from their jobs every day.
Demographics
The education level of Grafton citizens is substantially higher than the typical US community, as 32.85% of adults in Grafton have at least a bachelor's degree.
The per capita income in Grafton in 2022 was $45,659, which is wealthy relative to Illinois, and upper middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $182,636 for a family of four.
Grafton is a somewhat ethnically-diverse city. The people who call Grafton home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Grafton residents report their race to be White, followed by Native American. Important ancestries of people in Grafton include German, English, Irish, Scottish, and French.
The most common language spoken in Grafton is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Persian.
Notable & Unique Neighborhood Characteristics
Many things matter about a neighborhood, but the first thing most people notice is the way a neighborhood looks and its particular character. For example, one might notice whether the buildings all date from a certain time period or whether shop signs are in multiple languages. This particular neighborhood in Grafton, the neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
Real Estate
Despite all of the residential real estate here in the neighborhood, NeighborhoodScout has discovered that much of it is vacant. In resort or second-home vacation areas, this naturally occurs because homes and apartments are seasonally occupied, and empty for a portion of the year. In non-vacation or resort areas, however, this can be an indicator of property abandonment or a weak real estate market. The vacancy rate here is 45.2%, which is higher than 98.3% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
In addition, 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 29 people per square mile living here, this neighborhood is less crowded than 93.0% of America.
People
If you are planning to retire in Illinois, 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 Illinois, 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 95.4% of neighborhoods in IL. If a Illinois retirement is in your future, this neighborhood should be one of the places you visit.
Diversity
Did you know that the neighborhood has more German ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 37.0% of this neighborhood's residents have German ancestry.
The Neighbors
How wealthy a neighborhood is, from very wealthy, to middle income, to low income is very formative with regard to the personality and character of a neighborhood. Equally important is the rate of people, particularly children, who live below the federal poverty line. In some wealthy gated communities, the areas immediately surrounding can have high rates of childhood poverty, which indicates other social issues. NeighborhoodScout's analysis reveals both aspects of income and poverty for this neighborhood.
The neighbors in the neighborhood in Grafton are middle-income, making it a moderate income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 50.7% of the neighborhoods in America. In addition, 3.7% 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 68.4% 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, 46.0% 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 33.8% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (11.6%), and 8.7% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 97.1% of households.
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 Grafton, IL, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (37.0%). There are also a number of people of English ancestry (13.2%), and residents who report Irish roots (10.7%), and some of the residents are also of Scottish ancestry (4.5%), along with some French ancestry residents (2.8%), 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 (42.5% of working residents), longer and tougher than most commutes in America.
Here most residents (68.1%) 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 (10.7%) . 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.
