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.
Chinook is a very small city located in the state of Montana. With a population of 1,160 people and just one neighborhood, Chinook is the 78th largest community in Montana.
Occupations and Workforce
Unlike some cities, Chinook isn’t mainly white- or blue-collar. Instead, the most prevalent occupations for people in Chinook are a mix of both white- and blue-collar jobs. Overall, Chinook is a city of professionals, managers, and construction workers and builders. There are especially a lot of people living in Chinook who work in healthcare (20.15%), management occupations (12.44%), and teaching (11.26%).
One interesting thing about the economy is that relatively large numbers of people worked from their home: 8.88% of the workforce. While this number may seem small overall, as a fraction of the total workforce this is high compared to the rest of the county. These workers are often telecommuters who work in knowledge-based, white-collar professions. For example, Silicon Valley has large numbers of people who telecommute. Other at-home workers may be self-employed people who operate small businesses out of their homes.
Setting & Lifestyle
Residents of the city have the good fortune of having one of the shortest daily commutes compared to the rest of the country. On average, they spend only 13.36 minutes getting to work every day.
As is often the case in a small city, Chinook doesn't have a public transportation system that people use for their commute.
Demographics
Chinook is one of the most well-educated cities in the nation. 41.90% of adults in Chinook have at least a bachelor's degree. Compare that to the average community in America, which has just 21.84% with a bachelor's degree or higher.
The per capita income in Chinook in 2022 was $37,938, which is upper middle income relative to Montana and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $151,752 for a family of four. However, Chinook contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
The people who call Chinook home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Chinook residents report their race to be White, followed by Native American. Important ancestries of people in Chinook include German, English, Norwegian, Swedish, and Lithuanian.
The most common language spoken in Chinook 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
This neighborhood has wide open spaces, few people, and lots of space to stretch out. If you like locations that fit that description, you may like this neighborhood. Based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis, with only 1 people per square mile living here, this neighborhood is less crowded than 99.4% of America.
Length of Commute
Regardless of the means by which residents commute, this neighborhood has a length of commute that is notable. Residents of the neighborhood have the pleasure of having one of the shortest commutes to work of any neighborhood in America. 68.5% 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 98.3% of U.S. neighborhoods. Less time commuting means more time for other things in life.
Modes of Transportation
More people in choose to walk to work each day (11.5%) than almost any neighborhood in America. If you are attracted to the idea of being able to walk to work, this neighborhood could be a good choice.
People
If you are an executive or professional seeking a neighborhood affording an executive lifestyle, or just wanting to find where other executives live in the area, the neighborhood should be on your list. It has an enviable mix of spacious homes, relatively stable real estate values, and residents that include a number of wealthy executives, managers, and professionals. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis places it as one of the top 12.9% executive lifestyle neighborhoods in the state of Montana.
Diversity
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Lithuanian and Norwegian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 4.4% of this neighborhood's residents have Lithuanian ancestry and 14.0% have Norwegian ancestry.
is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 2.1% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak German/Yiddish at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 96.8% of the neighborhoods in America.
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 Chinook are middle-income, making it a moderate income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 48.2% of the neighborhoods in America. In addition, 6.7% 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 58.8% of America'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, 52.1% of the working population is employed in executive, management, and professional occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants, with 21.3% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations (16.2%), and 7.2% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
Languages
The languages spoken by people in this neighborhood are diverse. These are tabulated as the languages people preferentially speak when they are at home with their families. The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 95.7% of households. Other important languages spoken here include German/Yiddish and Spanish.
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 Chinook, MT, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (17.7%). There are also a number of people of Norwegian ancestry (14.0%), and residents who report English roots (13.7%), and some of the residents are also of Swedish ancestry (5.9%), along with some Lithuanian ancestry residents (4.4%), 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 (68.5% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.
Here most residents (59.2%) 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 (11.5%) and 10.8% 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.
