West Pittston is a very small borough located in the state of Pennsylvania. With a population of 4,648 people and just one neighborhood, West Pittston is the 328th largest community in Pennsylvania. Much of the housing stock in West Pittston was built prior to World War II, making it one of the older and more historic boroughs in the country.
West Pittston is neither predominantly blue-collar nor white-collar, instead having a mixed workforce of both blue-collar and white-collar jobs. Overall, West Pittston is a borough of professionals, sales and office workers, and managers. There are especially a lot of people living in West Pittston who work in office and administrative support (16.67%), management occupations (11.74%), and healthcare (9.26%).
Telecommuters are a relatively large percentage of the workforce: 7.70% of people work from home. While this number may seem small overall, as a fraction of the total workforce it is high relative to the nation. These workers are often telecommuters who work in knowledge-based, white-collar professions. For example, Silicon Valley has large numbers of people who telecommute. Other at-home workers may be self-employed people who operate small businesses out of their homes.
As is often the case in a small borough, West Pittston doesn't have a public transportation system that people use for their commute.
The citizens of West Pittston are very well educated compared to the average community in the nation: 34.40% of adults in West Pittston have a bachelor's degree or even advanced degree.
The per capita income in West Pittston in 2022 was $36,302, which is middle income relative to Pennsylvania and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $145,208 for a family of four. However, West Pittston contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
The people who call West Pittston home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of West Pittston residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Important ancestries of people in West Pittston include Irish, Italian, Polish, German, and Russian.
The most common language spoken in West Pittston is English. Other important languages spoken here include Italian and Polish.
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 West Pittston, the neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
Do you watch 'This Old House' on Public Television? Do you love the idea of fixing up a Colonial or Victorian era home, complete with the charm of yesteryear? Do you like to stroll or drive streets lined with gracious older residences? If you found yourself nodding yes to any of these questions, you are going to be interested in this unique neighborhood. The neighborhood stands out on a national scale for the sheer concentration of historic residences it contains: 55.6% of the residential real estate here was built from 1939 or earlier, some much earlier. This is a greater concentration of historic homes than 95.5% of the neighborhoods in the United States.
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Lithuanian and Polish ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 4.6% of this neighborhood's residents have Lithuanian ancestry and 18.3% have Polish ancestry.
is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 26.8% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Italian at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 99.9% of the neighborhoods in America.
How wealthy a neighborhood is, from very wealthy, to middle income, to low income is very formative with regard to the personality and character of a neighborhood. Equally important is the rate of people, particularly children, who live below the federal poverty line. In some wealthy gated communities, the areas immediately surrounding can have high rates of childhood poverty, which indicates other social issues. NeighborhoodScout's analysis reveals both aspects of income and poverty for this neighborhood.
The neighbors in the neighborhood in West Pittston are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 66.6% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 14.8% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 60.6% 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, 47.8% of the working population is employed in executive, management, and professional occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations, with 19.7% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (17.1%), and 15.4% in manufacturing and laborer occupations.
The languages spoken by people in this neighborhood are diverse. These are tabulated as the languages people preferentially speak when they are at home with their families. The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 89.0% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Italian, Polish, German/Yiddish and Arabic.
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 West Pittston, PA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Irish (28.9%). There are also a number of people of Italian ancestry (20.1%), and residents who report Polish roots (18.3%), and some of the residents are also of German ancestry (9.4%), along with some Russian ancestry residents (5.1%), among others.
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 between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (52.6% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (76.7%) 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 (14.6%) . In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.