Orient - Bridgewater is a very small town located in the state of Iowa. With a population of 1,588 people and just one neighborhood, Orient - Bridgewater is the 300th largest community in Iowa. Much of the housing stock in Orient - Bridgewater was built prior to World War II, making it one of the older and more historic towns in the country.
Because occupations involving physical labor dominate the local economy, Orient - Bridgewater is generally considered to be a blue-collar town. 38.07% of the Orient - Bridgewater workforce is employed in blue-collar occupations, compared to the national average of 27.7%. Overall, Orient - Bridgewater is a town of managers, professionals, and sales and office workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Orient - Bridgewater who work in management occupations (22.75%), office and administrative support (9.66%), and healthcare (9.66%).
Telecommuters are a relatively large percentage of the workforce: 9.23% of people work from home. While this number may seem small overall, as a fraction of the total workforce it is high relative to the nation. 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.
Because of many things, Orient - Bridgewater is a very good place for families to consider. With an enviable combination of good schools, low crime, college-educated neighbors who tend to support education because of their own experiences, and a high rate of home ownership in predominantly single-family properties, Orient - Bridgewater really has some of the features that families look for when choosing a good community to raise children. Is Orient - Bridgewater perfect? Of course not, and if you like frenetic nightlife, it will be far from your cup of tea. But overall this is a solid community, with many things to recommend it as a family-friendly place to live.
Orient - Bridgewater is a small town, and as such doesn't have a public transit system that people use to get to and from their jobs every day.
The education level of Orient - Bridgewater citizens, measured as those with bachelor's degrees or advanced degrees, is similar to the national average for all American cities and towns. 20.41% of adults 25 and older in Orient - Bridgewater have a college degree.
The per capita income in Orient - Bridgewater in 2022 was $42,774, which is wealthy relative to Iowa, and upper middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $171,096 for a family of four. However, Orient - Bridgewater contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
The people who call Orient - Bridgewater home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Orient - Bridgewater residents report their race to be White, followed by Native Hawaiian. Important ancestries of people in Orient - Bridgewater include German, Irish, English, Norwegian, and Danish.
The most common language spoken in Orient - Bridgewater is English. Other important languages spoken here include Polish and German/Yiddish.
The way a neighborhood looks and feels when you walk or drive around it, from its setting, its buildings, and its flavor, can make all the difference. This neighborhood has some really cool things about the way it looks and feels as revealed by NeighborhoodScout's exclusive research. This might include anything from the housing stock to the types of households living here to how people get around.
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 6 people per square mile living here, this neighborhood is less crowded than 97.9% of America.
It used to be that most Americans lived on the farm, or otherwise made their living from the land, the forests, or the sea. With global trade and an economy increasingly based on providing services to one another, fewer people farm, fish or harvest timber now than at any time in American history. But according to NeighborhoodScout's leading analysis, the neighborhood stands apart from most American neighborhood due to the proportion of its residents still working in these fields. With 4.8% of the workforce so employed, this neighborhood has a greater concentration of such workers than 96.7% of U.S. neighborhoods.
If you're nearing retirement age, or in retirement, the is an excellent choice for you to consider for top-quality retirement living. This neighborhood is rated by NeighborhoodScout as among the top 9.6% of retiree-friendly neighborhoods in Iowa, combining peace and quiet, safety from crime, and offering diverse housing options from which retirees can choose. Maybe it's because of these amenities that a large proportion of the residents here are college educated seniors, mixed with other age groups. For these and other reasons, NeighborhoodScout identifies this neighborhood as a top-notch place to consider if you are thinking of or planning to retire in Iowa.
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Danish and German ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 5.0% of this neighborhood's residents have Danish ancestry and 42.4% have German ancestry.
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 Orient - Bridgewater are upper-middle income, making it an above average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 64.6% of the neighborhoods in America. With 14.4% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 58.9% of U.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, 40.4% 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 33.3% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (11.3%), and 10.2% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 99.4% of households.
Culture is shared learned behavior. We learn it from our parents, their parents, our houses of worship, and much of our culture – our learned behavior – comes from our ancestors. That is why ancestry and ethnicity can be so interesting and important to understand: places with concentrations of people of one or more ancestries often express those shared learned behaviors and this gives each neighborhood its own culture. Even different neighborhoods in the same city can have drastically different cultures.
In the neighborhood in Orient - Bridgewater, IA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (42.4%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (11.1%), and residents who report English roots (8.2%), and some of the residents are also of Norwegian ancestry (5.4%), along with some Danish ancestry residents (5.0%), among others.
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 (38.7% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.
Here most residents (76.9%) 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.