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West Decatur, PA

This is a small community in a single neighborhood. As throughout the site, some neighborhood-level data are reserved for subscribers.





Overview


West Decatur is a tiny town located in the state of Pennsylvania. With a population of 453 people and just one neighborhood, West Decatur is the 1001st largest community in Pennsylvania. West Decatur has a large stock of pre-World War II architecture, making it one of the older and more historic towns in the country.

Occupations and Workforce

Unlike some towns where white-collar or blue-collar occupations dominate the local economy, West Decatur is neither predominantly one nor the other. Instead, it has a mixed workforce of both white- and blue-collar jobs. Overall, West Decatur is a town of sales and office workers, service providers, and transportation and shipping workers. There are especially a lot of people living in West Decatur who work in sales jobs (28.34%), healthcare (9.72%), and food service (9.31%).

Setting & Lifestyle

Residents will find that the town is relatively quiet. This is because it is not over-populated, and it has fewer college students, renters, and young children - all of whom can be noisy at times. So, if you're looking for a relatively peaceful place to live, West Decatur is worth considering.

West Decatur 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, West Decatur ranks among the least educated cities in the nation, as only 2.69% of people over 25 have a bachelor's degree or advanced degree.

The per capita income in West Decatur in 2022 was $17,750, which is low income relative to Pennsylvania and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $71,000 for a family of four. West Decatur also has one of the higher rates of people living in poverty in the nation, with 37.63% of its population below the federal poverty line.

The people who call West Decatur home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of West Decatur residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Important ancestries of people in West Decatur include Irish, German, Polish, English, and Scottish.

The most common language spoken in West Decatur is English. Other important languages spoken here include Polish and Italian.

Notable & Unique Neighborhood Characteristics

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.

Real Estate

One of the notable things about is that it is one of the quietest neighborhoods in America, according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis and quantitative rating of quietness. When you are here, you will find it to be very quiet. If quiet and peaceful are your cup of tea, you may have found a great place for you.

Migration / Stability

The freedom of moving to new places versus the comfort of home. How much and how often people move not only can create diverse and worldly neighborhoods, but simultaneously it can produce a loss of intimacy with one's surroundings and a lack of connectedness to one's neighbors. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive research has identified this neighborhood as unique with regard to the transience of its populace. More residents of the neighborhood live here today that also were living in this same neighborhood five years ago than is found in 97.0% of U.S. neighborhoods. This neighborhood is really made up of people who know each other, don't move often, and have lived here in this very neighborhood for quite a while.

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 West Decatur are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 68.8% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 19.5% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 68.1% 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, 31.4% of the working population is employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is manufacturing and laborer occupations, with 26.9% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in executive, management, and professional occupations (24.0%), and 16.9% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.

Languages

The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 99.2% of households.

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 West Decatur, PA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (20.5%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (9.1%), and residents who report English roots (8.4%), and some of the residents are also of Polish ancestry (4.2%), along with some Italian ancestry residents (4.2%), 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 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (36.8% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.

Here most residents (85.9%) 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 (9.1%) . In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.


Real Estate includes:
Average Home Values
Rental Market
Housing Market Details
Neighborhood Setting
Economics & Demographics include:
Lifestyle & Special Character
Household Types
Commute To Work
Migration & Mobility
Race & Ethnic Diversity
Employment Industries & Occupations
Income & Unemployment Rate
Higher Education Attainment
Crime includes:
Neighborhood Crime Index
Crimes Per Square Mile
Property Crime Comparison
Violent Crime Comparison
Schools include:
School Ratings
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