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.
West Hamlin is a tiny town located in the state of West Virginia. With a population of 508 people and just one neighborhood, West Hamlin is the 194th largest community in West Virginia.
Occupations and Workforce
Unlike some towns where white-collar or blue-collar occupations dominate the local economy, West Hamlin is neither predominantly one nor the other. Instead, it has a mixed workforce of both white- and blue-collar jobs. Overall, West Hamlin is a town of sales and office workers, transportation and shipping workers, and service providers. There are especially a lot of people living in West Hamlin who work in sales jobs (18.82%), office and administrative support (13.53%), and healthcare suport services (8.82%).
Setting & Lifestyle
Residents will find that the town is relatively quiet. This is because it is not over-populated, and it has fewer college students, renters, and young children - all of whom can be noisy at times. So, if you're looking for a relatively peaceful place to live, West Hamlin is worth considering.
West Hamlin is very much a car-oriented town. This is because the population of West Hamlin isn't large enough or dense enough to support an extensive public transit system. It has a lot of rural roads, and the distance between houses can be quite large, which together tends to discourage walking and bicycling to work. 99.40% of residents commute to work in their own car (and the drive is typically to a job out of town). People also tend to drive out of town for other services as well, such as shopping, doctors appointments, and more.
West Hamlin is a small town, and as such doesn't have a public transit system that people use to get to and from their jobs every day.
Demographics
The population of West Hamlin has one of the lowest overall levels of education in the country: only 5.00% of people over 25 hold a college degree. The national average for all municipalities is 21.84%.
The per capita income in West Hamlin in 2022 was $26,607, which is middle income relative to West Virginia, and lower middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $106,428 for a family of four. However, West Hamlin contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
The people who call West Hamlin home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of West Hamlin residents report their race to be White. Important ancestries of people in West Hamlin include Irish, English, German, Scottish, and Polish.
The most common language spoken in West Hamlin is English. Other important languages spoken here include Polish and Italian.
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 West Hamlin, the neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
Real Estate
The real estate in this neighborhood consists of more mobile homes than 99.0% of all neighborhoods in America, with 49.9% of the occupied housing here being classified as mobile homes. So if you are looking for a mobile home, or you like the look and feel of mobile home parks, this neighborhood might have the setting you desire.
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 West Hamlin are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 88.6% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 30.1% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 81.3% of U.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, 31.4% 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 executive, management, and professional occupations, with 27.2% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations (22.1%), and 19.4% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 99.3% of households. Some people also speak Italian (2.9%).
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 West Hamlin, WV, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as English (8.0%). There are also a number of people of German ancestry (7.2%), and residents who report Irish roots (4.2%), and some of the residents are also of Scottish ancestry (2.8%), along with some Italian ancestry residents (1.6%), among others.
Getting to Work
Even if your neighborhood is walkable, you may still have to drive to your place of work. Some neighborhoods are located where many can get to work in just a few minutes, while others are located such that most residents have a long and arduous commute. The greatest number of commuters in neighborhood spend between 45 minutes and one hour commuting one-way to work (25.5% of working residents), longer and tougher than most commutes in America.
Here most residents (76.4%) 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 (6.6%) and 5.8% 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.
