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.
Plum City is a tiny village located in the state of Wisconsin. With a population of 583 people and just one neighborhood, Plum City is the 436th largest community in Wisconsin. Plum City has a large stock of pre-World War II architecture, making it one of the older and more historic villages in the country.
Occupations and Workforce
Because occupations involving physical labor dominate the local economy, Plum City is generally considered to be a blue-collar town. 42.15% of the Plum City workforce is employed in blue-collar occupations, compared to the national average of 27.7%. Overall, Plum City is a village of managers, transportation and shipping workers, and service providers. There are especially a lot of people living in Plum City who work in management occupations (14.94%), office and administrative support (11.11%), and food service (7.66%).
Setting & Lifestyle
Plum City’s overall crime rate ranks among the lowest in the nation, making it a very safe place to live.
It is a fairly quiet village 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!) Plum City 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. Plum City has few renters and college students. But the biggest reason it is quieter in Plum City than in most places in America, is that there are just simply fewer people living here. If you think trees make good neighbors, Plum City may be for you.
One downside of living in Plum City, however, is that residents on average have to contend with a long commute, spending on average 33.61 minutes every day commuting to work.
Being a small village, Plum City does not have a public transit system used by locals to get to and from work.
Demographics
The percentage of people in Plum City with college degrees is quite a bit lower than the national average for cities and towns of 21.84%: just 12.70% of people over 25 have a bachelor's degree or advanced degree.
The per capita income in Plum City in 2022 was $25,985, which is low income relative to Wisconsin, and lower middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $103,940 for a family of four. However, Plum City contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
The people who call Plum City home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Plum City residents report their race to be White, followed by Asian. Important ancestries of people in Plum City include German, Norwegian, Irish, Swedish, and English.
The most common language spoken in Plum City is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish 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.
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 94.5% of the neighborhoods in America.
People
The neighborhood is a great option for families, as revealed by NeighborhoodScout's research on this neighborhood. The combination of top public schools, low crime rates, and owner-occupied single family homes, make this neighborhood among the top 9.6% of family-friendly neighborhoods in the state of Wisconsin. Many other families also live here, making it easy to socialize and develop a sense of community. In addition, families here highly value education, as is reflected by the strength of the local schools.
Diversity
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Swedish and Norwegian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 9.9% of this neighborhood's residents have Swedish ancestry and 13.1% have Norwegian 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 Plum City are middle-income, making it a moderate income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 57.7% of the neighborhoods in America. In addition, 2.9% 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 71.8% 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, 36.9% 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 32.8% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (16.0%), and 12.6% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 96.5% of households. Some people also speak Spanish (2.2%).
Ethnicity / Ancestry
Culture is the shared learned behavior of peoples. Undeniably, different ethnicities and ancestries have different cultural traditions, and as a result, neighborhoods with concentrations of residents of one or another ethnicities or ancestries will express those cultures. It is what makes the North End in Boston so fun to visit for the Italian restaurants, bakeries, culture, and charm, and similarly, why people enjoy visiting Chinatown in San Francisco.
In the neighborhood in Plum City, WI, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (41.8%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (14.9%), and residents who report Norwegian roots (13.1%), and some of the residents are also of Swedish ancestry (9.9%), along with some English ancestry residents (7.0%), 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 between 45 minutes and one hour commuting one-way to work (29.4% of working residents), longer and tougher than most commutes in America.
Here most residents (76.5%) 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 (12.5%) . 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.
