West Peoria is a very small city located in the state of Illinois. With a population of 4,152 people and just one neighborhood, West Peoria is the 382nd largest community in Illinois.
Unlike some cities where white-collar or blue-collar occupations dominate the local economy, West Peoria is neither predominantly one nor the other. Instead, it has a mixed workforce of both white- and blue-collar jobs. Overall, West Peoria is a city of professionals, sales and office workers, and service providers. There are especially a lot of people living in West Peoria who work in healthcare (13.74%), sales jobs (10.31%), and office and administrative support (10.20%).
Compared to the rest of the country, citizens of West Peoria spend much less time in their cars: on average, their commute to work is only 17.55 minutes. This also means that noise and pollution levels in the city are less than they would otherwise be.
In terms of college education, West Peoria is nearly on par with the US average for all cities of 21.84%: 19.54% of adults 25 and older in West Peoria have a bachelor's degree or advanced degree.
The per capita income in West Peoria in 2022 was $36,332, which is middle income relative to Illinois and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $145,328 for a family of four. However, West Peoria contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
West Peoria is an extremely ethnically-diverse city. The people who call West Peoria home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of West Peoria residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Important ancestries of people in West Peoria include German, Irish, English, Dutch, and Italian.
The most common language spoken in West Peoria is English. Other important languages spoken here include Italian and Polish.
The way a neighborhood looks and feels when you walk or drive around it, from its setting, its buildings, and its flavor, can make all the difference. This neighborhood has some really cool things about the way it looks and feels as revealed by NeighborhoodScout's exclusive research. This might include anything from the housing stock to the types of households living here to how people get around.
While most Americans do drive to work alone each day, the neighborhood stands out by having 89.4% of commuters doing so, which is a higher proportion of people driving alone to work than NeighborhoodScout found in 96.6% of all American neighborhoods.
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Croatian and Armenian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 0.9% of this neighborhood's residents have Croatian ancestry and 0.7% have Armenian ancestry.
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 Peoria are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 76.4% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 47.4% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 93.1% 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, 40.1% 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 28.0% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations (22.3%), and 9.2% 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 neighborhood is English, spoken by 97.1% of households. Other important languages spoken here include 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 neighborhood in West Peoria, IL, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (14.7%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (9.0%), and residents who report English roots (6.7%), and some of the residents are also of Sub-Saharan African ancestry (4.9%), along with some African ancestry residents (4.9%), 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 (56.6% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (89.4%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.