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.
West Union is a tiny city located in the state of Minnesota. With a population of 92 people and just one neighborhood, West Union is the 523rd largest community in Minnesota.
Occupations and Workforce
West Union is neither predominantly blue-collar nor white-collar, instead having a mixed workforce of both blue-collar and white-collar jobs. Overall, West Union is a city of service providers, sales and office workers, and transportation and shipping workers. There are especially a lot of people living in West Union who work in office and administrative support (12.20%), food service (12.20%), and sales jobs (9.76%).
One interesting thing about the economy is that relatively large numbers of people worked from their home: 13.51% of the workforce. While this number may seem small overall, as a fraction of the total workforce this is high compared to the rest of the county. 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, West Union is a great place for families with children to consider. First of all, many other families with children live here, making West Union 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, West Union has a high rate of owner-occupied single family homes, which tends to reflect stability in the local community. Finally, West Union’s overall crime rate ranks among the lowest in the country, making it one of the safest places to raise a family.
West Union 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
West Union ranks among the bottom of the nation in terms of college education compared to other cities and towns: only 3.64% of people over 25 have a college degree.
The per capita income in West Union in 2022 was $25,787, which is low income relative to Minnesota, and lower middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $103,148 for a family of four. However, West Union contains both very wealthy and poor people as well. West Union also has one of the higher rates of people living in poverty in the nation, with 31.17% of its population below the federal poverty line.
The people who call West Union home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of West Union residents report their race to be White. Important ancestries of people in West Union include German, Norwegian, Irish, English, and Belgian.
The most common language spoken in West Union is English. Other important languages spoken here include Polish and Italian.
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 West Union, 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 33.5%, which is higher than 96.0% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
In addition, 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 94.1% of the neighborhoods in America.
People
If you're looking for a great spot to raise a family, then look no further than the neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's analysis found that the combination of good quality public schools, above-average safety from crime, and a high rate of home ownership in predominantly single-family homes, help make this neighborhood among the top 12.3% of family-friendly neighborhoods across the state of Minnesota. In addition, there are a high proportion of other families with school-aged children living here, making it easy for parents and their children to socialize and develop a sense of community support. In addition, families here highly value education, as is reflected by the strength of the local schools, in part due to the educational attainment of the parents here, who vote in support of the public schools.
Diversity
Did you know that the neighborhood has more German and Norwegian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 54.4% of this neighborhood's residents have German ancestry and 13.5% have Norwegian ancestry.
is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 8.6% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak German/Yiddish at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 99.5% 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 West Union are middle-income, making it a moderate income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 56.0% of the neighborhoods in America. With 17.6% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 64.8% 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, 33.4% 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 32.7% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (19.7%), and 12.7% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
Languages
The languages spoken by people in this neighborhood are diverse. These are tabulated as the languages people preferentially speak when they are at home with their families. The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 90.6% of households. Other important languages spoken here include German/Yiddish and Polish.
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 West Union, MN, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (54.4%). There are also a number of people of Norwegian ancestry (13.5%), and residents who report Swedish roots (5.3%), and some of the residents are also of Irish ancestry (5.3%), along with some Polish ancestry residents (3.5%), 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 (38.4% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (75.4%) 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 (6.5%) . 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.
