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.
Shirleysburg is a tiny borough located in the state of Pennsylvania. With a population of 138 people and just one neighborhood, Shirleysburg is the 1113th largest community in Pennsylvania. Shirleysburg has an unusually large stock of pre-World War II architecture, making it one of the older and more historic boroughs.
Occupations and Workforce
When you are in Shirleysburg, you'll notice that it is more blue-collar than most other communities in America. 61.90% of Shirleysburg’s employed work in blue-collar jobs, while America averages only 27.7% that do. Overall, Shirleysburg is a borough of construction workers and builders, production and manufacturing workers, and service providers. There are especially a lot of people living in Shirleysburg who work in healthcare suport services (16.67%), sales jobs (9.52%), and office and administrative support (4.76%).
Setting & Lifestyle
It is a fairly quiet borough because there are relatively few of those groups of people who have a tendency to be noisy. (Children, for example, often can't help themselves from being noisy, and being parents ourselves, we know!) Shirleysburg has relatively few families with children living at home, and is quieter because of it. Renters and college students, for their own reasons, can also be noisy. Shirleysburg has few renters and college students. But the biggest reason it is quieter in Shirleysburg than in most places in America, is that there are just simply fewer people living here. If you think trees make good neighbors, Shirleysburg may be for you.
One downside of living in Shirleysburg, however, is that residents on average have to contend with a long commute, spending on average 34.38 minutes every day commuting to work.
As is often the case in a small borough, Shirleysburg doesn't have a public transportation system that people use for their commute.
Demographics
The population of Shirleysburg has one of the lowest overall levels of education in the country: only 4.60% of people over 25 hold a college degree. The national average for all municipalities is 21.84%.
The per capita income in Shirleysburg in 2022 was $32,064, which is lower middle income relative to Pennsylvania, and middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $128,256 for a family of four. However, Shirleysburg contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
The people who call Shirleysburg home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Shirleysburg residents report their race to be White. Important ancestries of people in Shirleysburg include German, Irish, Welsh, English, and Polish.
The most common language spoken in Shirleysburg is English. Other important languages spoken here include Italian and African languages.
Notable & Unique Neighborhood Characteristics
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 Shirleysburg, the neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
Length of Commute
Whether walking, biking, riding, or driving, the length of one's commute is an important factor for one's quality of life. The neighborhood stands out for its commute length, according to NeighborhoodScout's analysis. 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. 14.0% 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 98.3% of all neighborhoods in America.
Real Estate
This neighborhood has wide open spaces, few people, and lots of space to stretch out. If you like locations that fit that description, you may like this neighborhood. Based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis, with only 43 people per square mile living here, this neighborhood is less crowded than 90.4% of 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.
Occupations
NeighborhoodScout's exclusive research identifies the neighborhood as having one of the highest concentrations of people employed in manufacturing or as laborers of any neighborhood in America. In fact, despite the loss of manufacturing jobs nationally, this neighborhood has 43.4% of its working residents employed in such fields, which is a higher proportion than 96.5% of American neighborhoods.
People
NeighborhoodScout's exclusive research revealed that 92.6% 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 95.1% of the neighborhoods in America.
Diversity
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Greek ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 2.8% of this neighborhood's residents have Greek ancestry.
is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 1.0% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Russian at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 95.9% 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 Shirleysburg are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 85.4% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 15.9% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 62.7% 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, 43.4% 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 23.0% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (17.3%), and 16.0% 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 100.0% of households. Some people also speak Italian (6.2%).
Ethnicity / Ancestry
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 Shirleysburg, PA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (23.0%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (9.5%), and residents who report English roots (7.9%), and some of the residents are also of Italian ancestry (3.9%), along with some French ancestry residents (3.0%), among others.
Getting to Work
How you get to work – car, bus, train or other means – and how much of your day it takes to do so is a large quality of life and financial issue. Especially with gasoline prices rising and expected to continue doing so, the length and means of one's commute can be a financial burden. Some neighborhoods are physically located so that many residents have to drive in their own car, others are set up so many walk to work, or can take a train, bus, or bike. The greatest number of commuters in neighborhood spend under 15 minutes commuting one-way to work (31.5% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America. However, there is also a significant group of residents (14.0%) who commute over an hour in each direction.
Here most residents (85.5%) 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 (9.8%) . 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.
