Norton County, KS has 1.2× fewer landscaping and lawn-care businesses per resident than the national average.
Norton County, KS has 3 with employees and 5 without — 8 landscaping and lawn-care services in total, 15.1 per 10,000 residents against a national rate of 18.2. That's 1.2× fewer than average (US Census, County Business Patterns + Nonemployer Statistics 2023).
- In Norton County
- 3
- Per 10k residents
- 15.1
- National rate
- 18.2
- Ratio
- 1.2× fewer than average
Population 5,314. Ranked 9 of 42 Kansas counties with enough landscaping & lawn care data to compare — 1 = fewest per resident.
Source: US Census County Business Patterns ↗Census code 561730 covers landscaping services: lawn maintenance and mowing, planting, tree and shrub work, and landscape design and installation.
The blind spot: The code mixes large landscape-installation firms in with routine mowing. A county can have several big design-and-build landscapers and still be short of anyone who will simply cut a lawn every two weeks.
What this doesn't tell you: A low count can mean an opening — or that there's less local demand for it. This counts how many businesses exist, including sole proprietors, but not how many customers want one. Treat it as a lead to check, not a verdict.
County Business Patterns counts establishments with paid employees. A solo operator with no payroll — the most likely competitor for most of these businesses — is invisible to it, in every county, including this one.
Fewer of these per resident than the country average is a reason to look, not a reason to start. The two explanations the data cannot separate are “nobody has served this yet” and “there is less to serve here” — a county with few pool services may simply have few pools. The next step is not a business plan, it is ten phone calls to people in Norton County who would pay for it.
Census counts these as one industry, so the 3 above includes all of them together. It cannot tell you how many are any single one.
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