This is a small community in a single neighborhood.
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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.
Paragon is a tiny town located in the state of Indiana. With a population of 565 people and just one neighborhood, Paragon is the 397th largest community in Indiana. Paragon has a large stock of pre-World War II architecture, making it one of the older and more historic towns in the country.
Occupations and Workforce
Because occupations involving physical labor dominate the local economy, Paragon is generally considered to be a blue-collar town. 44.23% of the Paragon workforce is employed in blue-collar occupations, compared to the national average of 27.7%. Overall, Paragon is a town of sales and office workers, transportation and shipping workers, and service providers. There are especially a lot of people living in Paragon who work in sales jobs (13.46%), healthcare (8.85%), and healthcare suport services (8.08%).
Setting & Lifestyle
It is a fairly quiet town 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!) Paragon 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. Paragon has few renters and college students. But the biggest reason it is quieter in Paragon than in most places in America, is that there are just simply fewer people living here. If you think trees make good neighbors, Paragon may be for you.
Being a small town, Paragon does not have a public transit system used by locals to get to and from work.
Demographics
Paragon ranks among the bottom of the nation in terms of college education compared to other cities and towns: only 2.03% of people over 25 have a college degree.
The per capita income in Paragon in 2022 was $24,791, which is low income relative to Indiana and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $99,164 for a family of four. However, Paragon contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
The people who call Paragon home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Paragon residents report their race to be White. Important ancestries of people in Paragon include English, German, Irish, Pennsylvania German, and Polish.
The most common language spoken in Paragon is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish 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 Paragon, the neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
Occupations
The neighborhood stands out nationally for having a greater proportion of its residents active in the military than 98.3% of other U.S. neighborhoods. If you come here, you will notice military people active in their jobs, going to and from work, and in plain clothes out and about the neighborhood.
Furthermore, more people work in manufacturing and as laborers here in the neighborhood than in 96.8% of the neighborhoods in America. Despite the loss of manufacturing jobs across the nation, this neighborhood remains a place where, compared to other parts of the country, you will find many laborers and manufacturers.
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 Paragon are middle-income, making it a moderate income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 52.1% of the neighborhoods in America. In addition, 8.1% 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 54.9% 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, 44.1% 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 26.5% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (16.9%), and 12.5% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 99.4% of households. Some people also speak Italian (2.4%).
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 Paragon, IN, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (7.7%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (5.2%), and residents who report English roots (5.1%), and some of the residents are also of Scottish ancestry (2.7%).
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 (28.4% of working residents), longer and tougher than most commutes in America.
Here most residents (78.4%) 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.
