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.
Black River Falls is a very small city located in the state of Wisconsin. With a population of 3,587 people and just one neighborhood, Black River Falls is the 218th largest community in Wisconsin.
Occupations and Workforce
Unlike some cities where white-collar or blue-collar occupations dominate the local economy, Black River Falls is neither predominantly one nor the other. Instead, it has a mixed workforce of both white- and blue-collar jobs. Overall, Black River Falls is a city of service providers, sales and office workers, and professionals. There are especially a lot of people living in Black River Falls who work in sales jobs (12.44%), maintenance occupations (8.32%), and management occupations (6.78%).
Setting & Lifestyle
The city 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, Black River Falls has relatively fewer families with younger children, and/or college students. Combined, this makes Black River Falls a pretty quiet place to live overall. If you like quiet, you will probably enjoy it here.
Compared to the rest of the country, citizens of Black River Falls spend much less time in their cars: on average, their commute to work is only 17.66 minutes. This also means that noise and pollution levels in the city are less than they would otherwise be.
As is often the case in a small city, Black River Falls doesn't have a public transportation system that people use for their commute.
Demographics
The percentage of adults in Black River Falls who are college-educated is close to the national average for all communities of 21.84%: 18.97% of the adults in Black River Falls have a bachelor's degree or advanced degree.
The per capita income in Black River Falls in 2022 was $35,934, which is middle income relative to Wisconsin, and upper middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $143,736 for a family of four. However, Black River Falls contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
The people who call Black River Falls home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Black River Falls residents report their race to be White, followed by Native American. Important ancestries of people in Black River Falls include German, Norwegian, Irish, English, and French.
The most common language spoken in Black River Falls is English. Other important languages spoken here include Native American languages and Polish.
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 Black River Falls, the neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
People
Divorcees may find friendship and understanding in this neighborhood, as 20.1% of its residents are divorced. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis found that this divorce rate is higher than in 95.7% of the neighborhoods in America.
Length of Commute
Whether walking, biking, riding, or driving, the length of one's commute is an important factor for one's quality of life. The neighborhood stands out for its commute length, according to NeighborhoodScout's analysis. Residents of the neighborhood have the pleasure of having one of the shortest commutes to work of any neighborhood in America. 58.5% 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 95.5% of U.S. neighborhoods. Less time commuting means more time for other things in life.
Diversity
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Norwegian and Native American ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 23.3% of this neighborhood's residents have Norwegian ancestry and 4.7% have Native American 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 Black River Falls are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 83.9% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 20.2% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 69.1% of U.S. neighborhoods.
A neighborhood is far different if it is dominated by enlisted military personnel rather than people who earn their living by farming. It is also different if most of the neighbors are clerical support or managers. What is wonderful is the sheer diversity of neighborhoods, allowing you to find the type that fits your lifestyle and aspirations.
In the neighborhood, 32.6% of the working population is employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants. 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 executive, management, and professional occupations (29.1%), and 10.9% in government jobs, whether they are in local, state, or federal positions.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 98.2% of households. Some people also speak Polish (4.4%).
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 Black River Falls, WI, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (29.9%). There are also a number of people of Norwegian ancestry (23.3%), and residents who report Irish roots (10.0%), and some of the residents are also of English ancestry (8.4%), along with some Native American ancestry residents (4.7%), 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 (58.5% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.
Here most residents (82.9%) 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 (12.6%) . 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.
