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.
Balsam Lake is a tiny village located in the state of Wisconsin. With a population of 923 people and just one neighborhood, Balsam Lake is the 391st largest community in Wisconsin.
Occupations and Workforce
When you are in Balsam Lake, you'll notice that it is more blue-collar than most other communities in America. 36.47% of Balsam Lake’s employed work in blue-collar jobs, while America averages only 27.7% that do. Overall, Balsam Lake is a village of sales and office workers, managers, and transportation and shipping workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Balsam Lake who work in office and administrative support (16.41%), management occupations (9.73%), and sales jobs (9.12%).
A relatively large number of people in Balsam Lake telecommute to their jobs. Overall, about 8.02% 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
Another notable thing is that Balsam Lake is an extremely popular destination for tourists and seasonal residents. So much of the population is seasonal such that the village’s population swells significantly during the vacation season, and drops again when the season ends. Because of this, much of the local economy is centered around tourism; some businesses may be operated only during the high season. During the low season, year-round residents will notice that the city is a substantially quieter place to live.
The village is relatively quiet, having a combination of lower population density and few of those groups of people who have a tendency to be noisy. For example, Balsam Lake has relatively fewer families with younger children, and/or college students. Combined, this makes Balsam Lake a pretty quiet place to live overall. If you like quiet, you will probably enjoy it here.
As is often the case in a small village, Balsam Lake doesn't have a public transportation system that people use for their commute.
Demographics
The percentage of adults in Balsam Lake who are college-educated is close to the national average for all communities of 21.84%: 18.54% of the adults in Balsam Lake have a bachelor's degree or advanced degree.
The per capita income in Balsam Lake in 2022 was $32,005, which is lower middle income relative to Wisconsin, and middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $128,020 for a family of four. However, Balsam Lake contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
The people who call Balsam Lake home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Balsam Lake residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Important ancestries of people in Balsam Lake include German, Norwegian, Swedish, English, and Irish.
The most common language spoken in Balsam Lake is English. Other important languages spoken here include Polish and Italian.
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.
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 43.2%, which is higher than 98.0% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
People
Of particular note, 2.6% of the people in the neighborhood currently reside in a correction facility, held due to punishment for a crime.
Diversity
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Swedish and Norwegian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 17.5% of this neighborhood's residents have Swedish ancestry and 13.2% have Norwegian ancestry.
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 Balsam Lake are middle-income, making it a moderate income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 46.6% of the neighborhoods in America. In addition, 8.6% 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 54.2% 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, 37.0% 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 33.5% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (14.2%), and 13.5% 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 97.5% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Polish and Italian.
Ethnicity / Ancestry
Culture is the shared learned behavior of peoples. Undeniably, different ethnicities and ancestries have different cultural traditions, and as a result, neighborhoods with concentrations of residents of one or another ethnicities or ancestries will express those cultures. It is what makes the North End in Boston so fun to visit for the Italian restaurants, bakeries, culture, and charm, and similarly, why people enjoy visiting Chinatown in San Francisco.
In the neighborhood in Balsam Lake, WI, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (38.3%). There are also a number of people of Swedish ancestry (17.5%), and residents who report Norwegian roots (13.2%), and some of the residents are also of Irish ancestry (11.0%), along with some English ancestry residents (6.8%), 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 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (31.5% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (73.1%) 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 (6.8%) . 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.
