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.
Clear Lake is a very small city located in the state of South Dakota. With a population of 1,224 people and just one neighborhood, Clear Lake is the 88th largest community in South Dakota.
Occupations and Workforce
When you are in Clear Lake, you'll notice that it is more blue-collar than most other communities in America. 35.15% of Clear Lake’s employed work in blue-collar jobs, while America averages only 27.7% that do. Overall, Clear Lake is a city of professionals, sales and office workers, and service providers. There are especially a lot of people living in Clear Lake who work in office and administrative support (10.41%), teaching (8.02%), and maintenance occupations (7.85%).
Setting & Lifestyle
Clear Lake is a small city, and as such doesn't have a public transit system that people use to get to and from their jobs every day.
Demographics
The education level of Clear Lake citizens is a little higher than the average for US cities and towns: 24.89% of adults in Clear Lake have at least a bachelor's degree.
The per capita income in Clear Lake in 2022 was $32,686, which is middle income relative to South Dakota and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $130,744 for a family of four. However, Clear Lake contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
The people who call Clear Lake home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Clear Lake residents report their race to be White, followed by Native American. Important ancestries of people in Clear Lake include German, Norwegian, Irish, Dutch, and English.
The most common language spoken in Clear Lake is English. Other important languages spoken here include Polish and Spanish.
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.
People
One of the really interesting characteristics about the neighborhood is that, according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive research, it is an excellent choice in which to reside for college students. Due to its popularity among college students who already choose to live here, its walkability, and its above average safety from crime, the neighborhood is ideal for prospective or already-enrolled college students. Between semesters and during school breaks, you'll notice that the excitement here fluctuates with the college seasons. Despite the excitement however, parents of college-age children can rest easy knowing that this neighborhood has an above average safety rating. For each of these reasons, the neighborhood is rated among the top 4.5% of college-friendly places to live in the state of South Dakota.
Diversity
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Norwegian and German ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 28.9% of this neighborhood's residents have Norwegian ancestry and 46.2% have German 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 Clear Lake are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 60.9% of U.S. neighborhoods. In addition, 9.0% of the children seventeen and under living in this neighborhood are living below the federal poverty line, which is a lower rate of childhood poverty than is found in 53.2% of America'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, 33.3% 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 32.2% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (22.8%), and 11.6% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 99.1% 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 Clear Lake, SD, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (46.2%). There are also a number of people of Norwegian ancestry (28.9%), and residents who report Irish roots (7.7%), and some of the residents are also of Dutch ancestry (4.2%), along with some English ancestry residents (4.1%), 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 (57.0% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.
Here most residents (78.9%) 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 (10.0%) . 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.
