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.
Wataga is a tiny village located in the state of Illinois. With a population of 720 people and just one neighborhood, Wataga is the 713th largest community in Illinois.
Occupations and Workforce
Unlike some villages, Wataga isn’t mainly white- or blue-collar. Instead, the most prevalent occupations for people in Wataga are a mix of both white- and blue-collar jobs. Overall, Wataga is a village of sales and office workers, transportation and shipping workers, and service providers. There are especially a lot of people living in Wataga who work in sales jobs (21.55%), management occupations (11.01%), and office and administrative support (8.43%).
Setting & Lifestyle
Residents will find that the village 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, Wataga is worth considering.
Demographics
In Wataga, just 12.78% of people have at least a bachelor's degree, which is quite a bit lower than the national average for cities and towns of 21.84%.
The per capita income in Wataga in 2022 was $28,795, which is lower middle income relative to Illinois and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $115,180 for a family of four. However, Wataga contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
The people who call Wataga home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Wataga residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Important ancestries of people in Wataga include German, English, Irish, Swedish, and Italian.
The most common language spoken in Wataga 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
Uncrowded roads, rural America and space to be the individual you are. If you like these characteristics, this neighborhood may fit you. With just 30 residents per square mile, is less crowded than 92.8% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
People
If you're planning where to retire, the neighborhood in Wataga is a great option to consider. According to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive retirement dream area analysis, it's peaceful and quiet, has above average safety ratings compared to other neighborhoods in IL, offers a wide range of housing options, and has already attracted an enviable mix of college educated seniors. This neighborhood ranks as better for retirement living than 87.6% of the neighborhoods in Illinois. If you are considering retiring to Illinois, this is a good neighborhood to look at.
Diversity
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Swedish and Belgian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 11.0% of this neighborhood's residents have Swedish ancestry and 0.6% have Belgian 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 Wataga are middle-income, making it a moderate income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 52.0% of the neighborhoods in America. With 12.7% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 55.4% 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, 31.9% of the working population is employed in executive, management, and professional occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants, with 31.5% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations (24.1%), and 11.4% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 98.2% of households.
Ethnicity / Ancestry
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 Wataga, IL, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (18.3%). There are also a number of people of English ancestry (14.1%), and residents who report Irish roots (14.0%), and some of the residents are also of Swedish ancestry (11.0%), along with some Mexican 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 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (49.6% 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 (9.4%) . 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.
