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.
Wiley Ford - Ridgeley is a very small town located in the state of West Virginia. With a population of 2,350 people and just one neighborhood, Wiley Ford - Ridgeley is the 94th largest community in West Virginia.
Occupations and Workforce
Wiley Ford - Ridgeley is a blue-collar town, with 35.63% of people working in blue-collar occupations, while the average in America is just 27.7%. Overall, Wiley Ford - Ridgeley is a town of sales and office workers, service providers, and production and manufacturing workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Wiley Ford - Ridgeley who work in office and administrative support (22.62%), sales jobs (6.31%), and business and financial occupations (5.73%).
A relatively large number of people in Wiley Ford - Ridgeley telecommute to their jobs. Overall, about 8.06% 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
One of the benefits of Wiley Ford - Ridgeley is that there is very little traffic. The average commute to work is 18.08 minutes, which is substantially less than the national average. Not only does this mean that the drive to work is less aggravating, but noise and pollution levels are lower as a result.
Being a small town, Wiley Ford - Ridgeley does not have a public transit system used by locals to get to and from work.
Demographics
In terms of college education, the citizens of Wiley Ford - Ridgeley rank slightly lower than the national average. 13.28% of adults 25 and older in Wiley Ford - Ridgeley have a bachelor's degree or advanced degree, while 21.84% of adults have a 4-year degree or higher in the average American community.
The per capita income in Wiley Ford - Ridgeley in 2022 was $28,829, which is upper middle income relative to West Virginia, and lower middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $115,316 for a family of four. However, Wiley Ford - Ridgeley contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
The people who call Wiley Ford - Ridgeley home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Wiley Ford - Ridgeley residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Important ancestries of people in Wiley Ford - Ridgeley include German, Irish, English, Scandinavian, and Scottish.
The most common language spoken in Wiley Ford - Ridgeley 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 Wiley Ford - Ridgeley, the neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
Diversity
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Scottish ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 5.5% of this neighborhood's residents have Scottish ancestry.
Migration / Stability
Do you like to be surrounded by people from all over the country or world, with different perspectives and life experiences? Or do you instead prefer to be in a neighborhood where most residents have lived there for a long time, creating a sense of cohesiveness? NeighborhoodScout's analysis reveals that this neighborhood stands out among American neighborhoods for the uniqueness of the mobility of its residents. More residents of the neighborhood live here today that also were living in this same neighborhood five years ago than is found in 95.2% of U.S. neighborhoods. This neighborhood is really made up of people who know each other, don't move often, and have lived here in this very neighborhood for quite a while.
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 Wiley Ford - Ridgeley are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 61.6% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 22.5% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 72.4% 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, 35.6% 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 26.4% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in executive, management, and professional occupations (20.5%), and 17.5% in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants.
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 98.8% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Italian 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 Wiley Ford - Ridgeley, WV, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (23.6%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (9.0%), and residents who report English roots (8.2%), and some of the residents are also of Scottish ancestry (5.5%), along with some Italian ancestry residents (2.1%), 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 (54.0% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (81.1%) 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 (9.5%) . 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.
