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.
Lithonia is a very small city located in the state of Georgia. With a population of 2,583 people and just one neighborhood, Lithonia is the 233rd largest community in Georgia.
Occupations and Workforce
Lithonia is neither predominantly blue-collar nor white-collar, instead having a mixed workforce of both blue-collar and white-collar jobs. Overall, Lithonia is a city of professionals, service providers, and transportation and shipping workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Lithonia who work in healthcare (11.53%), food service (8.24%), and office and administrative support (7.52%).
Also of interest is that Lithonia has more people living here who work in computers and math than 95% of the places in the US.
Setting & Lifestyle
In Lithonia, however, the average commute to work is quite long. On average, people spend 37.97 minutes each day getting to work, which is significantly higher than the national average. One bright side is that local public transit is widely used, so it may be an option to avoid the headache of driving in the heavy traffic by leaving the car at home and taking transit.
Despite the fact that it is a small city, Lithonia has quite a few people who take public transportation – mostly the bus - for their daily commute to work. This helps to fill a real need in the city for affordable transportation.
Demographics
The education level of Lithonia citizens, measured as those with bachelor's degrees or advanced degrees, is similar to the national average for all American cities and towns. 20.98% of adults 25 and older in Lithonia have a college degree.
The per capita income in Lithonia in 2022 was $33,540, which is upper middle income relative to Georgia, and middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $134,160 for a family of four. However, Lithonia contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
Lithonia is a somewhat ethnically-diverse city. The people who call Lithonia home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Lithonia residents report their race to be Black or African-American, followed by Asian. Important ancestries of people in Lithonia include Jamaican, Guyanese, African, German, and Irish.
The most common language spoken in Lithonia is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Tagalog.
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 Lithonia, the neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
Length of Commute
Regardless of the means by which residents commute, this neighborhood has a length of commute that is notable. Long commutes can be brutal. They take time, money, and energy, leaving less of you for yourself and your family. The residents of the neighborhood unfortunately have the distinction of having, on average, a longer commute than most any neighborhood in America. 15.6% of commuters here travel more than one hour just one-way to work. That is more than two hours per day. This percentage with two-hour + round-trip commutes is higher than NeighborhoodScout found in 98.8% of all neighborhoods in America.
People
One of the most interesting things about the neighborhood is that it has a greater concentration of residents who live alone than most all neighborhoods in America. With 59.4% of the households here made up of people living alone, NeighborhoodScout's research reveals that this is a larger proportion of people living alone than in 98.6% of the neighborhoods in America.
In addition, the neighborhood stands out for having an average per capita income lower than 96.6% of the neighborhoods in the United States.
Car Ownership
Most American households own a car or other vehicle. Many own two cars or perhaps three. In the United States, it is useful to have an automobile not only for commuting, but also for shopping and getting to other services one needs. But NeighborhoodScout's analysis revealed that households in the neighborhood have a highly unusual car ownership. 26.3% of the households in this neighborhood don't own a car at all. This is more carless households than NeighborhoodScout found in 96.6% of U.S. neighborhoods.
Diversity
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Jamaican and African ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 8.1% of this neighborhood's residents have Jamaican ancestry and 10.7% have African 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 Lithonia are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 96.6% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 45.8% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 92.4% 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, 36.8% 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 34.4% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (18.1%), and 10.7% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 91.9% of households. Some people also speak Spanish (4.5%).
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 Lithonia, GA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Sub-Saharan African (12.5%). There are also a number of people of African ancestry (10.7%), and residents who report Jamaican roots (8.1%), and some of the residents are also of Haitian ancestry (4.1%), along with some Mexican ancestry residents (3.6%), among others. In addition, 11.5% of the residents of this neighborhood were born in another country.
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 30 and 45 minutes commuting one-way to work (31.1% of working residents), which is at or a bit above the average length of a commute across all U.S. neighborhoods. However, there is also a significant group of residents (15.6%) who commute over an hour in each direction.
Here most residents (68.3%) 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 (15.4%) and 6.6% of residents also ride the bus 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.
