St. James is a very small city located in the state of Minnesota. With a population of 4,704 people and just one neighborhood, St. James is the 163rd largest community in Minnesota.
Because occupations involving physical labor dominate the local economy, St. James is generally considered to be a blue-collar town. 35.09% of the St. James workforce is employed in blue-collar occupations, compared to the national average of 27.7%. Overall, St. James is a city of professionals, sales and office workers, and construction workers and builders. There are especially a lot of people living in St. James who work in teaching (10.85%), office and administrative support (9.33%), and sales jobs (8.84%).
One of the benefits of St. James is that there is very little traffic. The average commute to work is 18.00 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.
In terms of college education, the citizens of St. James rank slightly lower than the national average. 16.17% of adults 25 and older in St. James 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 St. James in 2022 was $30,308, which is lower middle income relative to Minnesota, and middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $121,232 for a family of four. However, St. James contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
St. James is an extremely ethnically-diverse city. The people who call St. James home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of St. James residents report their race to be White, followed by Native American. St. James also has a sizeable Hispanic population (people of Hispanic origin can be of any race). People of Hispanic or Latino origin account for 43.89% of the city’s residents. Important ancestries of people in St. James include German, Norwegian, Swedish, Irish, and British.
St. James also has a high percentage of its population that was born in another country: 20.03%.
The most common language spoken in St. James is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Polish.
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.
Regardless of the means by which residents commute, this neighborhood has a length of commute that is notable. Residents of the neighborhood have the pleasure of having one of the shortest commutes to work of any neighborhood in America. 63.8% of the residents have a commute time from home to work (one way) of less than fifteen minutes. This is a higher proportion of residents enjoying a short trip to work than NeighborhoodScout found in 97.2% of U.S. neighborhoods. Less time commuting means more time for other things in life.
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 4.1% of the workforce so employed, this neighborhood has a greater concentration of such workers than 95.9% of U.S. neighborhoods.
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Norwegian and Swedish ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 16.4% of this neighborhood's residents have Norwegian ancestry and 6.2% have Swedish 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 St. James are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 78.5% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 30.0% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 81.2% 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, 33.1% 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 30.6% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (20.5%), and 11.7% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 64.6% of households. Some people also speak Spanish (35.4%).
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 St. James, MN, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Mexican (33.0%). There are also a number of people of German ancestry (31.4%), and residents who report Norwegian roots (16.4%), and some of the residents are also of Swedish ancestry (6.2%), along with some Irish ancestry residents (3.1%), among others. In addition, 19.8% of the residents of this neighborhood were born in another country.
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 (63.8% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.
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 (12.1%) and 9.1% of residents also hop out the door and walk to work for their daily commute. In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.