Switzer is a tiny town located in the state of West Virginia. With a population of 593 people and just one neighborhood, Switzer is the 186th largest community in West Virginia.
Switzer is a decidedly white-collar town, with fully 100.00% of the workforce employed in white-collar jobs, well above the national average. Overall, Switzer is a town of managers, sales and office workers, and transportation and shipping workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Switzer who work in management occupations (80.65%), office and administrative support (19.35%), and sales jobs (0.00%).
Residents will find that the town is relatively quiet. This is because it is not over-populated, and it has fewer college students, renters, and young children - all of whom can be noisy at times. So, if you're looking for a relatively peaceful place to live, Switzer is worth considering.
In Switzer, however, the average commute to work is quite long. On average, people spend 57.90 minutes each day getting to work, which is significantly higher than the national average.
Switzer is very much a car-oriented town. This is because the population of Switzer isn't large enough or dense enough to support an extensive public transit system. It has a lot of rural roads, and the distance between houses can be quite large, which together tends to discourage walking and bicycling to work. 100.00% of residents commute to work in their own car (and the drive is typically to a job out of town). People also tend to drive out of town for other services as well, such as shopping, doctors appointments, and more.
Switzer is a small town, and as such doesn't have a public transit system that people use to get to and from their jobs every day.
The population of Switzer has a very low overall level of education: only 9.15% of people over 25 hold a 4-year college degree or higher.
The per capita income in Switzer in 2022 was $24,629, 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 $98,516 for a family of four.
The people who call Switzer home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Switzer residents report their race to be White. Important ancestries of people in Switzer include Irish, Yugoslavian, Other West Indian, West Indian, and U.S. Virgin Islander.
The most common language spoken in Switzer is English. Other important languages spoken here include Italian and African languages.
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 Switzer, the neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
Our research reveals that 93.7% of commuters who live in the neighborhood get to work each day by driving alone in their automobiles, which is a higher proportion than 99.3% of U.S. neighborhoods.
Divorcees may find friendship and understanding in this neighborhood, as 20.4% of its residents are divorced. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis found that this divorce rate is higher than in 96.1% of the neighborhoods in America.
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. 10.3% 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 96.0% of all neighborhoods in America.
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Hungarian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 4.1% of this neighborhood's residents have Hungarian ancestry.
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 Switzer are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 87.3% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 40.2% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 89.5% 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 29.6% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (17.4%), and 16.3% in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants.
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 100.0% of households. Some people also speak Italian (3.5%).
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 Switzer, WV, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Irish (14.4%). There are also a number of people of German ancestry (13.1%), and residents who report English roots (6.0%), and some of the residents are also of Hungarian ancestry (4.1%), along with some Italian ancestry residents (2.1%), among others.
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 (40.1% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America. However, there is also a significant group of residents (10.3%) who commute over an hour in each direction.
Here most residents (93.7%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.