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.
Wakefield is a tiny town located in the state of Virginia. With a population of 748 people and just one neighborhood, Wakefield is the 309th largest community in Virginia.
Occupations and Workforce
Unlike some towns, Wakefield isn’t mainly white- or blue-collar. Instead, the most prevalent occupations for people in Wakefield are a mix of both white- and blue-collar jobs. Overall, Wakefield is a town of service providers, transportation and shipping workers, and production and manufacturing workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Wakefield who work in healthcare suport services (28.92%), law enforcement and fire fighting (10.95%), and teaching (5.00%).
Setting & Lifestyle
Residents will find that the town is relatively quiet. This is because it is not over-populated, and it has fewer college students, renters, and young children - all of whom can be noisy at times. So, if you're looking for a relatively peaceful place to live, Wakefield is worth considering.
In Wakefield, however, the average commute to work is quite long. On average, people spend 40.49 minutes each day getting to work, which is significantly higher than the national average.
Being a small town, Wakefield does not have a public transit system used by locals to get to and from work.
Demographics
The education level of Wakefield citizens, measured as those with bachelor's degrees or advanced degrees, is similar to the national average for all American cities and towns. 19.45% of adults 25 and older in Wakefield have a college degree.
The per capita income in Wakefield in 2022 was $32,517, which is middle income relative to Virginia and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $130,068 for a family of four. However, Wakefield contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
Wakefield is an extremely ethnically-diverse town. The people who call Wakefield home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Wakefield residents report their race to be Black or African-American, followed by White. Important ancestries of people in Wakefield include African, German, English, Irish, and Scottish.
The most common language spoken in Wakefield is English. Other important languages spoken here include Italian and German/Yiddish.
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
While most Americans do drive to work alone each day, the neighborhood stands out by having 91.8% of commuters doing so, which is a higher proportion of people driving alone to work than NeighborhoodScout found in 98.0% of all American neighborhoods.
Diversity
Did you know that the neighborhood has more African and Sub-Saharan African ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 37.7% of this neighborhood's residents have African ancestry and 37.7% have Sub-Saharan African 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 Wakefield are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 70.7% of U.S. neighborhoods. In addition, 7.7% 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 56.7% of America'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, 37.4% of the working population is employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations, with 27.8% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (19.5%), and 15.2% in executive, management, and professional occupations.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 98.9% 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 Wakefield, VA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Sub-Saharan African (37.7%). There are also a number of people of African ancestry (37.7%), and residents who report Irish roots (5.0%), and some of the residents are also of German ancestry (5.0%), along with some English ancestry residents (4.7%), 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 (54.1% of working residents), longer and tougher than most commutes in America.
Here most residents (91.8%) 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 (5.8%) . 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.
