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.
Gainesville - Pontiac is a very small town located in the state of Missouri. With a population of 2,725 people and just one neighborhood, Gainesville - Pontiac is the 230th largest community in Missouri.
Occupations and Workforce
Because occupations involving physical labor dominate the local economy, Gainesville - Pontiac is generally considered to be a blue-collar town. 40.18% of the Gainesville - Pontiac workforce is employed in blue-collar occupations, compared to the national average of 27.7%. Overall, Gainesville - Pontiac is a town of service providers, construction workers and builders, and professionals. There are especially a lot of people living in Gainesville - Pontiac who work in management occupations (10.91%), healthcare (9.88%), and healthcare suport services (8.34%).
One interesting thing about the economy is that relatively large numbers of people worked from their home: 13.23% of the workforce. While this number may seem small overall, as a fraction of the total workforce this is high compared to the rest of the county. 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
The town is relatively quiet, having a combination of lower population density and few of those groups of people who have a tendency to be noisy. For example, Gainesville - Pontiac has relatively fewer families with younger children, and/or college students. Combined, this makes Gainesville - Pontiac a pretty quiet place to live overall. If you like quiet, you will probably enjoy it here.
As is often the case in a small town, Gainesville - Pontiac doesn't have a public transportation system that people use for their commute.
Demographics
The percentage of people in Gainesville - Pontiac 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 Gainesville - Pontiac in 2022 was $22,757, which is lower middle income relative to Missouri, and low income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $91,028 for a family of four. Gainesville - Pontiac also has one of the higher rates of people living in poverty in the nation, with 30.98% of its population below the federal poverty line.
The people who call Gainesville - Pontiac home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Gainesville - Pontiac residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Important ancestries of people in Gainesville - Pontiac include German, English, Irish, French, and Scots-Irish.
The most common language spoken in Gainesville - Pontiac is English. Other important languages spoken here include Polish and Italian.
Notable & Unique Neighborhood Characteristics
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.
People
The neighborhood stands out for having an average per capita income lower than 96.4% of the neighborhoods in the United States.
Modes of Transportation
In the neighborhood, walking to work is a real option for many. In fact, NeighborhoodScout's exclusive research reveals walking to and from work is the chosen way to commute for 12.5% of residents here. This is a higher proportion of walking commuters than we found in 96.2% of American neighborhoods. Get ready to put on your walking shoes if you move here!
Real Estate
Unpopulated, and rural, the neighborhood is one of the least crowded neighborhoods in all of America. If you like open space, no traffic, and lots of room, this neighborhood may be just what you are looking for. According to NeighborhoodScout's leading research, this neighborhood is less densely populated than 95.8% of the neighborhoods in America.
Diversity
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Scots-Irish ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 4.0% of this neighborhood's residents have Scots-Irish ancestry.
The Neighbors
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 Gainesville - Pontiac are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 96.4% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 29.4% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 80.6% 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, 40.2% 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 32.1% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (14.4%), and 13.4% in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 99.7% of households.
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 Gainesville - Pontiac, MO, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (14.3%). There are also a number of people of English ancestry (13.7%), and residents who report Irish roots (9.7%), and some of the residents are also of French ancestry (4.1%), along with some Scots-Irish ancestry residents (4.0%), 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 (40.8% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.
Here most residents (64.9%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In addition, quite a number also hop out the door and walk to work to get to work (12.5%) and 9.5% of residents also carpool with coworkers, friends, or neighbors 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.
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.
