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.
Williamstown is a very small borough located in the state of Pennsylvania. With a population of 1,299 people and just one neighborhood, Williamstown is the 764th largest community in Pennsylvania. Much of the housing stock in Williamstown was built prior to World War II, making it one of the older and more historic boroughs in the country.
Occupations and Workforce
When you are in Williamstown, you'll notice that it is more blue-collar than most other communities in America. 37.65% of Williamstown’s employed work in blue-collar jobs, while America averages only 27.7% that do. Overall, Williamstown is a borough of service providers, sales and office workers, and production and manufacturing workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Williamstown who work in office and administrative support (12.35%), management occupations (7.69%), and maintenance occupations (7.49%).
Setting & Lifestyle
One downside of living in Williamstown is that it can take a long time to commute to work. In Williamstown, the average commute to work is 33.38 minutes, which is quite a bit higher than the national average. However, it is a pedestrian-friendly borough. Many of Williamstown’s neighborhoods are dense enough and have amenities close enough together that people find it feasible to get around on foot.
Being a small borough, Williamstown does not have a public transit system used by locals to get to and from work.
Demographics
The citizens of Williamstown have a very low rate of college education: just 8.97% of people over 25 have a bachelor's degree or advanced degree, compared to a national average of 21.84% for all cities.
The per capita income in Williamstown in 2022 was $26,620, which is low income relative to Pennsylvania, and lower middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $106,480 for a family of four. However, Williamstown contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
Williamstown is a somewhat ethnically-diverse borough. The people who call Williamstown home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Williamstown residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Williamstown also has a sizeable Hispanic population (people of Hispanic origin can be of any race). People of Hispanic or Latino origin account for 10.33% of the borough’s residents. Important ancestries of people in Williamstown include German, Irish, Italian, Welsh, and Greek.
The most common language spoken in Williamstown is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Polish.
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.
Real Estate
If you find historic homes and neighborhoods attractive, you love the details, the history, and the charm, then you are sure to be interested in this neighborhood. With 58.5% of the residential real estate in the neighborhood built no later than 1939, and some built considerably earlier, this neighborhood has a greater concentration of historic residences than 96.1% of all neighborhoods in America. In this regard, this neighborhood truly stands out as special.
Diversity
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Welsh and Puerto Rican ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 2.7% of this neighborhood's residents have Welsh ancestry and 9.5% have Puerto Rican ancestry.
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 Williamstown are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 62.5% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 32.2% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 83.3% 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, 38.1% 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 25.7% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (19.6%), and 16.6% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
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 96.0% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Polish, Spanish and Italian.
Ethnicity / Ancestry
Culture is the shared learned behavior of peoples. Undeniably, different ethnicities and ancestries have different cultural traditions, and as a result, neighborhoods with concentrations of residents of one or another ethnicities or ancestries will express those cultures. It is what makes the North End in Boston so fun to visit for the Italian restaurants, bakeries, culture, and charm, and similarly, why people enjoy visiting Chinatown in San Francisco.
In the neighborhood in Williamstown, PA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (34.0%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (11.5%), and residents who report Puerto Rican roots (9.5%), and some of the residents are also of Italian ancestry (4.2%), along with some English ancestry residents (3.3%), 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 between 45 minutes and one hour commuting one-way to work (36.9% of working residents), longer and tougher than most commutes in America.
Here most residents (77.7%) 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 (15.2%) . 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.
