This is a small community in a single neighborhood.
As throughout the site, some neighborhood-level data are reserved for subscribers.
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.
East Brookfield is a very small town located in the state of Massachusetts. With a population of 2,202 people and just one neighborhood, East Brookfield is the 298th largest community in Massachusetts. Much of the housing stock in East Brookfield was built prior to World War II, making it one of the older and more historic towns in the country.
Occupations and Workforce
Unlike some towns, East Brookfield isn’t mainly white- or blue-collar. Instead, the most prevalent occupations for people in East Brookfield are a mix of both white- and blue-collar jobs. Overall, East Brookfield is a town of sales and office workers, professionals, and production and manufacturing workers. There are especially a lot of people living in East Brookfield who work in office and administrative support (16.13%), sales jobs (12.67%), and healthcare (8.20%).
Setting & Lifestyle
East Brookfield is a good choice for families with children because of several factors. Many other families with children live here, making it a place where both parents and children are more likely to develop social ties with other families. The town’s good public school district and large population of college-educated adults provide an environment conducive to academic success. Many people own their own single-family homes, providing areas for children to play and stability in the community. Finally, East Brookfield’s overall crime rate ranks among the lowest in the country, making it one of the safest places to raise a family.
It is a fairly quiet town 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!) East Brookfield 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. East Brookfield has few renters and college students. But the biggest reason it is quieter in East Brookfield than in most places in America, is that there are just simply fewer people living here. If you think trees make good neighbors, East Brookfield may be for you.
One downside of living in East Brookfield, however, is that residents on average have to contend with a long commute, spending on average 33.71 minutes every day commuting to work.
East Brookfield is a small town, and as such doesn't have a public transit system that people use to get to and from their jobs every day.
Demographics
In terms of college education, East Brookfield is somewhat better educated than the 21.84% who have a 4-year degree or higher in the typical US community: 26.47% of adults 25 and older in the town have at least a bachelor's degree.
The per capita income in East Brookfield in 2022 was $42,386, which is low income relative to Massachusetts, and upper middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $169,544 for a family of four. However, East Brookfield contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
The people who call East Brookfield home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of East Brookfield residents report their race to be White, followed by Asian. Important ancestries of people in East Brookfield include French, Irish, English, Italian, and German.
The most common language spoken in East Brookfield is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Portuguese.
Notable & Unique Neighborhood Characteristics
When you see a neighborhood for the first time, the most important thing is often the way it looks, like its homes and its setting. Some places look the same, but they only reveal their true character after living in them for a while because they contain a unique mix of occupational or cultural groups. This neighborhood is very unique in some important ways, according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive exploration and analysis.
People
If you're planning where to retire, the neighborhood in East Brookfield is a great option to consider. According to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive retirement dream area analysis, it's peaceful and quiet, has above average safety ratings compared to other neighborhoods in MA, offers a wide range of housing options, and has already attracted an enviable mix of college educated seniors. This neighborhood ranks as better for retirement living than 86.8% of the neighborhoods in Massachusetts. If you are considering retiring to Massachusetts, this is a good neighborhood to look at.
Diversity
Did you know that the neighborhood has more French Canadian and French ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 6.7% of this neighborhood's residents have French Canadian ancestry and 13.5% have French ancestry.
is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 2.4% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Portuguese at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 98.1% of the neighborhoods in America.
The Neighbors
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 East Brookfield are middle-income, making it a moderate income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 51.3% of the neighborhoods in America. In addition, 3.5% of the children seventeen and under living in this neighborhood are living below the federal poverty line, which is a lower rate of childhood poverty than is found in 69.1% of America'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, 36.5% of the working population is employed in executive, management, and professional occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is manufacturing and laborer occupations, with 26.6% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (19.7%), and 17.0% in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants.
Languages
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 94.4% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Portuguese.
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 East Brookfield, MA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as French (13.5%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (12.3%), and residents who report English roots (9.7%), and some of the residents are also of Italian ancestry (7.1%), along with some German ancestry residents (7.0%), 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 between 45 minutes and one hour commuting one-way to work (30.0% of working residents), longer and tougher than most commutes in America.
Here most residents (86.4%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In addition, quite a number also hop out the door and walk to work to get to work (5.1%) . 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.
