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.
Clay is a very small city located in the state of Kentucky. With a population of 997 people and just one neighborhood, Clay is the 255th largest community in Kentucky.
Occupations and Workforce
When you are in Clay, you'll notice that it is more blue-collar than most other communities in America. 40.61% of Clay’s employed work in blue-collar jobs, while America averages only 27.7% that do. Overall, Clay is a city of professionals, managers, and construction workers and builders. There are especially a lot of people living in Clay who work in healthcare (11.03%), business and financial occupations (9.39%), and sales jobs (7.75%).
Setting & Lifestyle
It is a fairly quiet city 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!) Clay 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. Clay has few renters and college students. But the biggest reason it is quieter in Clay than in most places in America, is that there are just simply fewer people living here. If you think trees make good neighbors, Clay may be for you.
As is often the case in a small city, Clay doesn't have a public transportation system that people use for their commute.
Demographics
The citizens of Clay have a very low rate of college education: just 9.80% of people over 25 have a bachelor's degree or advanced degree, compared to a national average of 21.84% for all cities.
The per capita income in Clay in 2022 was $20,377, which is lower middle income relative to Kentucky, and low income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $81,508 for a family of four. However, Clay contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
The people who call Clay home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Clay residents report their race to be White, followed by Native Hawaiian. Important ancestries of people in Clay include English, Irish, European, Scottish, and German.
The most common language spoken in Clay is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and African languages.
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.
Modes of Transportation
Our research reveals that 91.6% of commuters who live in the neighborhood get to work each day by driving alone in their automobiles, which is a higher proportion than 97.9% of U.S. neighborhoods.
Occupations
NeighborhoodScout's exclusive research identifies the neighborhood as having one of the highest concentrations of people employed in manufacturing or as laborers of any neighborhood in America. In fact, despite the loss of manufacturing jobs nationally, this neighborhood has 42.3% of its working residents employed in such fields, which is a higher proportion than 95.5% of American neighborhoods.
Real Estate
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 31 people per square mile living here, this neighborhood is less crowded than 92.6% of America.
Diversity
Significantly, 0.8% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Greek at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 95.5% of the neighborhoods in America.
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 Clay are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 79.5% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 13.3% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 56.7% 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, 42.3% 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 32.1% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (13.8%), and 9.3% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 97.4% of households. Some people also speak Spanish (2.6%).
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 Clay, KY, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as English (13.9%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (11.1%), and residents who report German roots (5.2%), and some of the residents are also of Mexican ancestry (2.4%), along with some Greek ancestry residents (1.4%), among others.
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 (43.8% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.
Here most residents (91.6%) 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 (7.3%) . 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.
