Wilkes Barre Southwest median real estate price is $182,155, which is less expensive than 78.0% of Pennsylvania neighborhoods and 83.3% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
The average rental price in Wilkes Barre Southwest is currently $1,669, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. Rents here are currently lower in price than 55.2% of Pennsylvania neighborhoods.
Wilkes Barre Southwest is an urban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.
Wilkes Barre Southwest real estate is primarily made up of medium sized (three or four bedroom) to small (studio to two bedroom) single-family homes and small apartment buildings. Most of the residential real estate is occupied by a mixture of owners and renters. Many of the residences in the Wilkes Barre Southwest neighborhood are relatively historic, built no later than 1939, and in some cases, quite a bit earlier. A number of residences were also built between 1940 and 1969.
Vacant apartments or homes are a major fact of life in Wilkes Barre Southwest. The current real estate vacancy rate here is 18.9%. This is higher than the rate of vacancies in 86.1% of all U.S. neighborhoods. In addition, most vacant housing here is vacant year round. This can sometimes be the case in neighborhoods dominated by new construction that is not yet occupied. But often neighborhoods with vacancy rates this high are places that can be plagued by a protracted vacancy problem. If you live here, you may find that a number of buildings in your neighborhood are actually empty.
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 Wilkes-Barre, the Wilkes Barre Southwest neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
Whether by choice, divorce, or unplanned pregnancy, single moms may have the toughest job in the book. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that the Wilkes Barre Southwest neighborhood has more single mother households than 98.3% of the neighborhoods in the U.S. Often high concentrations of single mother homes can be a strong indicator of family and social issues such as poverty, high rates of school dropouts, crime, and other societal problems.
In addition, the Wilkes Barre Southwest neighborhood stands out within Pennsylvania 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 9.2% of college-friendly places to live in PA.
Our research shows that more people carpool to work here in the Wilkes Barre Southwest (25.3%) than in 97.1% of the neighborhoods in America.
Whether walking, biking, riding, or driving, the length of one's commute is an important factor for one's quality of life. The Wilkes Barre Southwest 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 Wilkes Barre Southwest neighborhood unfortunately have the distinction of having, on average, a longer commute than most any neighborhood in America. 9.7% 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 95.3% of all neighborhoods in America.
Did you know that the Wilkes Barre Southwest neighborhood has more Dominican and Welsh ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 18.3% of this neighborhood's residents have Dominican ancestry and 4.1% have Welsh ancestry.
Wilkes Barre Southwest is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 12.5% 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 98.7% of the neighborhoods in America.
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 Wilkes Barre Southwest neighborhood in Wilkes-Barre are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 74.5% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 32.1% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 83.8% 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 Wilkes Barre Southwest neighborhood, 32.8% 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 26.0% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (21.5%), and 19.7% in clerical, assistant, and tech support 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 Wilkes Barre Southwest neighborhood is English, spoken by 79.0% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish, Italian and Polish.
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 Wilkes Barre Southwest neighborhood in Wilkes-Barre, PA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Dominican (18.3%). There are also a number of people of Puerto Rican ancestry (18.1%), and residents who report Polish roots (15.5%), and some of the residents are also of Italian ancestry (7.3%), along with some Irish ancestry residents (7.2%), among others. In addition, 11.7% of the residents of this neighborhood were born in another country.
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 Wilkes Barre Southwest neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (35.1% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans. However, there is also a significant group of residents (9.7%) who commute over an hour in each direction.
Here most residents (59.2%) 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 (25.3%) and 7.7% of residents also hop out the door and walk to work 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.