This is a small community in a single neighborhood.
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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.
Portage Lake - Ashland is a very small town located in the state of Maine. With a population of 1,878 people and just one neighborhood, Portage Lake - Ashland is the 220th largest community in Maine.
Occupations and Workforce
When you are in Portage Lake - Ashland, you'll notice that it is more blue-collar than most other communities in America. 53.30% of Portage Lake - Ashland’s employed work in blue-collar jobs, while America averages only 27.7% that do. Overall, Portage Lake - Ashland is a town of transportation and shipping workers, production and manufacturing workers, and sales and office workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Portage Lake - Ashland who work in office and administrative support (12.16%), farm management occupations (11.70%), and healthcare (5.11%).
You will also find that a lot of people in Portage Lake - Ashland work in agricultural jobs - much more than in the average community in America. This will be quite apparent if you drive around town, as much of the landscape is dedicated to farms.
Setting & Lifestyle
Another notable thing is that Portage Lake - Ashland is an extremely popular destination for tourists and seasonal residents. So much of the population is seasonal such that the town’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.
It is a fairly quiet town because there are relatively few of those groups of people who have a tendency to be noisy. (Children, for example, often can't help themselves from being noisy, and being parents ourselves, we know!) Portage Lake - Ashland has relatively few families with children living at home, and is quieter because of it. Renters and college students, for their own reasons, can also be noisy. Portage Lake - Ashland has few renters and college students. But the biggest reason it is quieter in Portage Lake - Ashland than in most places in America, is that there are just simply fewer people living here. If you think trees make good neighbors, Portage Lake - Ashland may be for you.
As is often the case in a small town, Portage Lake - Ashland doesn't have a public transportation system that people use for their commute.
Demographics
The percentage of people in Portage Lake - Ashland with college degrees is quite a bit lower than the national average for cities and towns of 21.84%: just 12.33% of people over 25 have a bachelor's degree or advanced degree.
The per capita income in Portage Lake - Ashland in 2022 was $29,793, which is lower middle income relative to Maine, and middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $119,172 for a family of four. However, Portage Lake - Ashland contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
The people who call Portage Lake - Ashland home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Portage Lake - Ashland residents report their race to be White, followed by Native Hawaiian. Important ancestries of people in Portage Lake - Ashland include French, English, Irish, Scottish, and French Canadian.
The most common language spoken in Portage Lake - Ashland is English. Other important languages spoken here include French 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 Portage Lake - Ashland, the neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
Occupations
Each year, fewer and fewer Americans make their living as farmers, foresters, or fishers. But the neighborhood truly stands out among U.S. neighborhoods. According to exclusive NeighborhoodScout analysis, this neighborhood has a greater proportion of farmers, foresters, or fishers than 99.2% of all American neighborhoods. This is truly a unique cultural characteristic of this neighborhood.
Furthermore, neighborhoodScout's exclusive research identifies the neighborhood as having one of the highest concentrations of people employed in manufacturing or as laborers of any neighborhood in America. In fact, despite the loss of manufacturing jobs nationally, this neighborhood has 41.6% of its working residents employed in such fields, which is a higher proportion than 95.0% of American neighborhoods.
Real Estate
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 8 people per square mile living here, this neighborhood is less crowded than 97.4% of America. One of the notable things about is that it is one of the quietest neighborhoods in America, according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis and quantitative rating of quietness. When you are here, you will find it to be very quiet. If quiet and peaceful are your cup of tea, you may have found a great place for you.
In addition, vacant homes and apartments are a significant characteristic of this neighborhood. In fact, with 36.1% of the residential real estate vacant, the neighborhood claims the distinction of having a higher vacancy rate than 96.7% of the neighborhoods in America. This can either be because much of the property is seasonally occupied, like in many vacation areas, or that much of the real estate is more permanently abandoned.
Diversity
Did you know that the neighborhood has more French and French Canadian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 26.4% of this neighborhood's residents have French ancestry and 3.9% have French Canadian ancestry.
is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 1.0% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Greek at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 97.0% of the neighborhoods in America.
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 Portage Lake - Ashland are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 81.5% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 25.4% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 76.1% 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, 41.6% of the working population is employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is executive, management, and professional occupations, with 17.2% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (15.2%), and 14.3% 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 92.9% of households. Other important languages spoken here include French, Italian and Spanish.
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 Portage Lake - Ashland, ME, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as French (26.4%). There are also a number of people of English ancestry (18.8%), and residents who report Irish roots (16.7%), and some of the residents are also of Scottish ancestry (4.8%), along with some French Canadian ancestry residents (3.9%), among others.
Getting to Work
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 (37.3% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.
Here most residents (83.0%) 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 (14.1%) . 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.
