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.
Medicine Lake - Westby is a very small town located in the state of Montana. With a population of 1,140 people and just one neighborhood, Medicine Lake - Westby is the 80th largest community in Montana.
Occupations and Workforce
Unlike some towns, Medicine Lake - Westby isn’t mainly white- or blue-collar. Instead, the most prevalent occupations for people in Medicine Lake - Westby are a mix of both white- and blue-collar jobs. Overall, Medicine Lake - Westby is a town of service providers, managers, and sales and office workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Medicine Lake - Westby who work in management occupations (21.37%), healthcare suport services (11.28%), and office and administrative support (10.53%).
One interesting thing about the economy is that relatively large numbers of people worked from their home: 10.69% 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
As is often the case in a small town, Medicine Lake - Westby doesn't have a public transportation system that people use for their commute.
Demographics
The population of Medicine Lake - Westby overall has a level of education that is slightly above the US average for all US cities and towns of 21.84%. Of adults 25 and older in Medicine Lake - Westby, 24.50% have at least a bachelor's degree.
The per capita income in Medicine Lake - Westby in 2022 was $40,738, which is wealthy relative to Montana, and upper middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $162,952 for a family of four. However, Medicine Lake - Westby contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
Medicine Lake - Westby is a somewhat ethnically-diverse town. The people who call Medicine Lake - Westby home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Medicine Lake - Westby residents report their race to be White, followed by Native American. Important ancestries of people in Medicine Lake - Westby include German, Norwegian, Danish, English, and Irish.
The most common language spoken in Medicine Lake - Westby is English. Other important languages spoken here include German/Yiddish and Spanish.
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 99.3% of the neighborhoods in America. One of the notable things about is that it is one of the quietest neighborhoods in America, according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis and quantitative rating of quietness. When you are here, you will find it to be very quiet. If quiet and peaceful are your cup of tea, you may have found a great place for you.
Car Ownership
We Americans love our cars. Not only are they a necessity for most Americans due to the shape of our neighborhoods and the distances between where we live, work, shop, and go to school, but we also fancy them. As a result, most households in America have one, two, or three cars. But NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis shows that the neighborhood has a highly unusual pattern of car ownership. Residents of this neighborhood must really love automobiles. NeighborhoodScout's Analysis reveals that 39.5% of the households here have four, five, or more cars. That is more cars per household than in 98.0% of the neighborhoods in the nation.
Occupations
It used to be that most Americans lived on the farm, or otherwise made their living from the land, the forests, or the sea. With global trade and an economy increasingly based on providing services to one another, fewer people farm, fish or harvest timber now than at any time in American history. But according to NeighborhoodScout's leading analysis, the neighborhood stands apart from most American neighborhood due to the proportion of its residents still working in these fields. With 3.6% of the workforce so employed, this neighborhood has a greater concentration of such workers than 95.0% of U.S. neighborhoods.
Diversity
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Danish and Norwegian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 11.3% of this neighborhood's residents have Danish ancestry and 24.7% have Norwegian ancestry.
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 Medicine Lake - Westby are middle-income, making it a moderate income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 44.6% of the neighborhoods in America. With 11.9% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 53.6% of U.S. neighborhoods.
The old saying "you are what you eat" is true. But it is also true that you are what you do for a living. The types of occupations your neighbors have shape their character, and together as a group, their collective occupations shape the culture of a place.
In the neighborhood, 36.2% of the working population is employed in executive, management, and professional occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations, with 21.8% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations (20.0%), and 18.4% in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 99.1% of households.
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 Medicine Lake - Westby, MT, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (30.5%). There are also a number of people of Norwegian ancestry (24.7%), and residents who report Danish roots (11.3%), and some of the residents are also of English ancestry (10.9%), along with some Irish ancestry residents (8.3%), 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 under 15 minutes commuting one-way to work (47.7% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.
Here most residents (66.7%) 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 (14.5%) and 8.2% of residents also hop out the door and walk to work 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.
