Gary is a tiny city located in the state of West Virginia. With a population of 687 people and just one neighborhood, Gary is the 169th largest community in West Virginia. Gary has an unusually large stock of pre-World War II architecture, making it one of the older and more historic cities.
Gary is a decidedly white-collar city, with fully 92.71% of the workforce employed in white-collar jobs, well above the national average. Overall, Gary is a city of service providers, professionals, and sales and office workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Gary who work in healthcare suport services (27.43%), architecture and engineering (15.28%), and food service (11.46%).
Overall, Gary’s crime rate is one of the lowest in the nation, which makes a great place to live if safety is an important concern.
Residents will find that the city 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, Gary is worth considering.
In Gary, however, the average commute to work is quite long. On average, people spend 30.57 minutes each day getting to work, which is significantly higher than the national average.
Gary is a small city, and as is often the case with smaller towns, the population isn't large or dense enough to support much in the way of a public transportation system. In fact, there are many rural roads around Gary, which makes walking or biking to and from work a bit difficult. This makes for a very car-oriented town: 99.30% of residents commute to work by private automobile, and people often drive out of town for work, shopping, and other activities.
Being a small city, Gary does not have a public transit system used by locals to get to and from work.
The population of Gary has one of the lowest overall levels of education in the country: only 3.37% of people over 25 hold a college degree. The national average for all municipalities is 21.84%.
The per capita income in Gary in 2022 was $19,188, which is low income relative to West Virginia and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $76,752 for a family of four. However, Gary contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
Gary is a very ethnically-diverse city. The people who call Gary home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Gary residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Important ancestries of people in Gary include Irish, Dutch, English, French, and German.
The most common language spoken in Gary is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and African languages.
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.
The government often provides some of the more stable jobs in the economy. From local, to state, to federal government workers, the government can also be a major employer. What NeighborhoodScout's analysis revealed, is that the neighborhood in particular stands out when compared nationally for the proportion of its working residents who are employed by the government. At 18.0% of its workforce, this neighborhood has a greater concentration of government workers than 98.5% of U.S. neighborhoods.
Of note, 61.4% of the children in this area live in poverty; an extraordinarily high percentage compared to other neighborhoods in the nation. In a nation where approximately one in four children grows up in poverty, this neighborhood stands out for the depth of the problem manifested here.
In addition, neighborhoodScout's exclusive research revealed that 94.2% of the adult residents in the neighborhood do not have a 4-year college degree, which is a lower rate of college graduated adults than found in 96.7% of the neighborhoods in America.
Also, the neighborhood stands out within West Virginia for its college student friendly environment. NeighborhoodScout's analysis reveals that this neighborhood is home to a number of college students, is relatively walkable, and above average in safety. In combination, this makes it stand out for a good place for college students to consider. Because a number of college students live here, this neighborhood may be close to a college campus and offer certain amenities nearby geared towards the student body. While it's not an environment for everyone, ambitious scholars can enjoy seasonal excitement between semesters and school breaks, and parents can rest easy knowing that the area has an above average safety rating. For each of these reasons, the neighborhood is rated among the top 7.7% of college-friendly places to live in WV.
While most Americans do drive to work alone each day, the neighborhood stands out by having 89.1% of commuters doing so, which is a higher proportion of people driving alone to work than NeighborhoodScout found in 96.3% of all American neighborhoods.
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 32.1%, which is higher than 95.9% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
In addition, uncrowded roads, rural America and space to be the individual you are. If you like these characteristics, this neighborhood may fit you. With just 28 residents per square mile, is less crowded than 93.2% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Irish ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 26.4% of this neighborhood's residents have Irish ancestry.
Some neighborhoods have more internal cohesiveness than others. While other neighborhoods feel like a collection of strangers who just happen to live near each other. Sometimes this comes down to not only the personalities of the people in a place, but how long people have been together in that neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research has revealed some interesting things about the rootedness of people in the neighborhood. More residents of the neighborhood live here today that also were living in this same neighborhood five years ago than is found in 97.3% of U.S. neighborhoods. This neighborhood is really made up of people who know each other, don't move often, and have lived here in this very neighborhood for quite a while.
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 Gary are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 94.9% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 61.4% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 97.3% 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, 37.1% 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 28.8% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations (21.6%), and 18.0% in government jobs, whether they are in local, state, or federal positions.
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 97.1% of households.
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 Gary, WV, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Irish (26.4%). There are also a number of people of German ancestry (12.9%), and residents who report English roots (10.2%), and some of the residents are also of Italian ancestry (2.3%), along with some Scottish ancestry residents (2.2%), 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 between 45 minutes and one hour commuting one-way to work (51.4% of working residents), longer and tougher than most commutes in America.
Here most residents (89.1%) 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 (5.5%) and 5.3% 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.