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.
Hampden is a very small town located in the state of Massachusetts. With a population of 4,913 people and just one neighborhood, Hampden is the 256th largest community in Massachusetts.
Occupations and Workforce
Unlike some towns, Hampden isn’t mainly white- or blue-collar. Instead, the most prevalent occupations for people in Hampden are a mix of both white- and blue-collar jobs. Overall, Hampden is a town of professionals, managers, and sales and office workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Hampden who work in management occupations (15.63%), sales jobs (13.21%), and teaching (8.63%).
Setting & Lifestyle
Because of many things, Hampden is a very good place for families to consider. With an enviable combination of good schools, low crime, college-educated neighbors who tend to support education because of their own experiences, and a high rate of home ownership in predominantly single-family properties, Hampden really has some of the features that families look for when choosing a good community to raise children. Is Hampden perfect? Of course not, and if you like frenetic nightlife, it will be far from your cup of tea. But overall this is a solid community, with many things to recommend it as a family-friendly place to live.
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, Hampden is worth considering.
In Hampden, however, the average commute to work is quite long. On average, people spend 30.45 minutes each day getting to work, which is significantly higher than the national average.
As is often the case in a small town, Hampden doesn't have a public transportation system that people use for their commute.
Demographics
The education level of Hampden citizens is very high relative to the national average among all cities (21.84%): 37.72% of adults in Hampden have a bachelor's degree or even advanced degree.
The per capita income in Hampden in 2022 was $50,922, which is lower middle income relative to Massachusetts, and wealthy relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $203,688 for a family of four.
The people who call Hampden home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Hampden residents report their race to be White, followed by Asian. Important ancestries of people in Hampden include Irish, Italian, English, Polish, and French.
The most common language spoken in Hampden is English. Other important languages spoken here include Polish and Italian.
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 Hampden, the neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
People
In a nation where 1 out of every 4 children lives in poverty, the neighborhood stands out as being ranked among the lowest 0.0% of neighborhoods affected by this global issue.
Real Estate
Owner-occupied real estate dominates the neighborhood. In fact, according to NeighborhoodScout research, the percentage of residential real estate occupied by its owner is higher here than in 97.1% of neighborhoods in America.
Diversity
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Lithuanian and French Canadian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 4.4% of this neighborhood's residents have Lithuanian ancestry and 6.8% have French Canadian ancestry.
is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 8.0% 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 97.0% 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 Hampden are upper-middle income, making it an above average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 79.8% of the neighborhoods in America. In addition, 0.0% 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 100.0% of America'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, 44.8% 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 25.7% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations (20.3%), and 8.6% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 97.1% of households. Some people also speak Polish (8.0%).
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 Hampden, MA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Irish (20.4%). There are also a number of people of Italian ancestry (16.1%), and residents who report English roots (13.8%), and some of the residents are also of Polish ancestry (11.4%), along with some French ancestry residents (7.5%), 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 (39.5% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (83.8%) 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 (8.3%) . 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.
