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.
Richwood is a very small city located in the state of West Virginia. With a population of 1,640 people and just one neighborhood, Richwood is the 120th largest community in West Virginia.
Occupations and Workforce
Unlike some cities, Richwood isn’t mainly white- or blue-collar. Instead, the most prevalent occupations for people in Richwood are a mix of both white- and blue-collar jobs. Overall, Richwood is a city of sales and office workers, service providers, and professionals. There are especially a lot of people living in Richwood who work in sales jobs (24.77%), healthcare suport services (17.76%), and healthcare (10.75%).
Of important note, Richwood is also a city of artists. Richwood has more artists, designers and people working in media than 90% of the communities in America. This concentration of artists helps shape Richwood’s character.
Setting & Lifestyle
The city is relatively quiet, having a combination of lower population density and few of those groups of people who have a tendency to be noisy. For example, Richwood has relatively fewer families with younger children, and/or college students. Combined, this makes Richwood a pretty quiet place to live overall. If you like quiet, you will probably enjoy it here.
One downside of living in Richwood is that it can take a long time to commute to work. In Richwood, the average commute to work is 33.31 minutes, which is quite a bit higher than the national average. On the other hand, local public transit is widely used in the city, so leaving the car at home and taking transit is often a viable alternative.
For a small city, Richwood has a lot of people who use public transit to get to work, and those that do mostly ride the bus. This suggests that a real need for low-cost transportation in Richwood exists, and local transit is helping to meet that need.
Demographics
The rate of college-level education in Richwood is quite a bit lower than the national average among all cities of 21.84%: just 12.93% of people here over 25 have a bachelor's degree or an advanced degree.
The per capita income in Richwood in 2022 was $20,572, which is lower middle income relative to West Virginia, and low income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $82,288 for a family of four. However, Richwood contains both very wealthy and poor people as well. Richwood also has one of the higher rates of people living in poverty in the nation, with 30.56% of its population below the federal poverty line.
The people who call Richwood home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Richwood residents report their race to be White, followed by Asian. Important ancestries of people in Richwood include German, Irish, English, Dutch, and Welsh.
The most common language spoken in Richwood is English. Other important languages spoken here include Italian and Greek.
Notable & Unique Neighborhood Characteristics
When you see a neighborhood for the first time, the most important thing is often the way it looks, like its homes and its setting. Some places look the same, but they only reveal their true character after living in them for a while because they contain a unique mix of occupational or cultural groups. This neighborhood is very unique in some important ways, according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive exploration and analysis.
Modes of Transportation
More people ride the bus in this neighborhood each day to get to work than 98.3% of U.S. neighborhoods.
People
Divorcees may find friendship and understanding in this neighborhood, as 23.0% of its residents are divorced. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis found that this divorce rate is higher than in 98.3% of the neighborhoods in America.
Real Estate
Despite all of the residential real estate here in the neighborhood, NeighborhoodScout has discovered that much of it is vacant. In resort or second-home vacation areas, this naturally occurs because homes and apartments are seasonally occupied, and empty for a portion of the year. In non-vacation or resort areas, however, this can be an indicator of property abandonment or a weak real estate market. The vacancy rate here is 41.7%, which is higher than 97.8% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
In addition, 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 93.4% 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.
Diversity
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Dutch and Welsh ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 12.9% of this neighborhood's residents have Dutch ancestry and 5.0% have Welsh ancestry.
is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 1.2% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Greek at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 97.7% 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 Richwood are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 92.1% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 32.3% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 83.3% 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, 29.3% of the working population is employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is executive, management, and professional occupations, with 24.5% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations (24.3%), and 21.9% 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 98.5% of households. Some people also speak Italian (2.2%).
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 Richwood, WV, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (14.9%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (14.2%), and residents who report Dutch roots (12.9%), and some of the residents are also of English ancestry (10.6%), along with some French ancestry residents (7.7%), 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 (36.9% of working residents), longer and tougher than most commutes in America.
Here most residents (73.1%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In addition, quite a number also ride the bus to get to work (18.6%) . 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.
