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.
Luzerne is a very small borough located in the state of Pennsylvania. With a population of 2,723 people and just one neighborhood, Luzerne is the 542nd largest community in Pennsylvania. Luzerne has an unusually large stock of pre-World War II architecture, making it one of the older and more historic boroughs.
Occupations and Workforce
Unlike some boroughs where white-collar or blue-collar occupations dominate the local economy, Luzerne is neither predominantly one nor the other. Instead, it has a mixed workforce of both white- and blue-collar jobs. Overall, Luzerne is a borough of managers, professionals, and sales and office workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Luzerne who work in management occupations (14.76%), business and financial occupations (11.67%), and office and administrative support (10.17%).
One interesting thing about the economy is that relatively large numbers of people worked from their home: 12.68% of the workforce. While this number may seem small overall, as a fraction of the total workforce this is high compared to the rest of the county. 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.
Setting & Lifestyle
Residents of the borough have the good fortune of having one of the shortest daily commutes compared to the rest of the country. On average, they spend only 18.86 minutes getting to work every day.
Luzerne is a small borough, 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, the citizens of Luzerne rank slightly lower than the national average. 14.84% of adults 25 and older in Luzerne have a bachelor's degree or advanced degree, while 21.84% of adults have a 4-year degree or higher in the average American community.
The per capita income in Luzerne in 2022 was $31,778, 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 $127,112 for a family of four. However, Luzerne contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
The people who call Luzerne home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Luzerne residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Important ancestries of people in Luzerne include German, Polish, Irish, Italian, and Russian.
The most common language spoken in Luzerne is English. Other important languages spoken here include Polish and Persian.
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 Luzerne, the neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
People
Of note, 58.8% of the children in this area live in poverty; an extraordinarily high percentage compared to other neighborhoods in the nation. In a nation where approximately one in four children grows up in poverty, this neighborhood stands out for the depth of the problem manifested here.
Diversity
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Lithuanian and Welsh ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 6.7% of this neighborhood's residents have Lithuanian ancestry and 5.9% have Welsh ancestry.
is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 15.8% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Polish at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 99.4% 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 Luzerne are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 92.6% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 58.8% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 96.7% 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, 45.0% 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 21.5% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations (18.7%), and 14.8% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 98.9% of households. Some people also speak Polish (15.8%).
Ethnicity / Ancestry
Boston's Beacon Hill blue-blood streets, Brooklyn's Orthodox Jewish enclaves, Los Angeles' Persian neighborhoods. Each has its own culture derived primarily from the ancestries and culture of the residents who call these neighborhoods home. Likewise, each neighborhood in America has its own culture – some more unique than others – based on lifestyle, occupations, the types of households – and importantly – on the ethnicities and ancestries of the people who live in the neighborhood. Understanding where people came from, who their grandparents or great-grandparents were, can help you understand how a neighborhood is today.
In the neighborhood in Luzerne, PA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (22.7%). There are also a number of people of Polish ancestry (19.3%), and residents who report Irish roots (13.2%), and some of the residents are also of Italian ancestry (12.4%), along with some Russian ancestry residents (8.1%), among others.
Getting to Work
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 neighborhood spend under 15 minutes commuting one-way to work (48.4% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.
Here most residents (79.2%) 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.
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.
