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.
Blairstown is a tiny town located in the state of New Jersey. With a population of 493 people and just one neighborhood, Blairstown is the 500th largest community in New Jersey. Much of the housing stock in Blairstown was built prior to World War II, making it one of the older and more historic towns in the country.
Housing costs in Blairstown are among some of the highest in the nation, although real estate prices here don't compare to real estate prices in the most expensive communities in New Jersey.
Occupations and Workforce
Blairstown is neither predominantly blue-collar nor white-collar, instead having a mixed workforce of both blue-collar and white-collar jobs. Overall, Blairstown is a town of managers, production and manufacturing workers, and professionals. There are especially a lot of people living in Blairstown who work in management occupations (47.67%), healthcare (16.28%), and farm management occupations (8.72%).
You will also find that a lot of people in Blairstown work in agricultural jobs - much more than in the average community in America. This will be quite apparent if you drive around town, as much of the landscape is dedicated to farms.
Telecommuters are a relatively large percentage of the workforce: 13.37% of people work from home. While this number may seem small overall, as a fraction of the total workforce it is high relative to the nation. 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
One downside of living in Blairstown is that it can take a long time to commute to work. In Blairstown, the average commute to work is 31.06 minutes, which is quite a bit higher than the national average.
Being a small town, Blairstown does not have a public transit system used by locals to get to and from work.
Demographics
The population of Blairstown is very well educated relative to most cities and towns in the nation, where the average community has 21.84% of its adult population holding a 4-year degree or higher: 35.96% of adults in Blairstown have a bachelor's degree or even advanced degree.
The per capita income in Blairstown in 2022 was $63,055, which is upper middle income relative to New Jersey, and wealthy relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $252,220 for a family of four. However, Blairstown contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
Blairstown is a somewhat ethnically-diverse town. The people who call Blairstown home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Blairstown residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Important ancestries of people in Blairstown include Italian, German, Norwegian, Polish, and Irish.
The most common language spoken in Blairstown is English. Other important languages spoken here include Italian and Spanish.
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 Blairstown, the neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
People
Of note is NeighborhoodScout's research finding that the neighborhood has some of the lowest rates of children living in poverty of any neighborhood in the United States. In a nation where approximately 1 in 4 children are living in poverty, the community truly stands out from the rest in this regard.
Diversity
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Irish and Italian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 28.5% of this neighborhood's residents have Irish ancestry and 24.7% have Italian ancestry.
is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 9.1% 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 97.7% 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 Blairstown are wealthy, making it among the 15% highest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 90.0% 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.
A neighborhood is far different if it is dominated by enlisted military personnel rather than people who earn their living by farming. It is also different if most of the neighbors are clerical support or managers. What is wonderful is the sheer diversity of neighborhoods, allowing you to find the type that fits your lifestyle and aspirations.
In the neighborhood, 40.4% 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 29.9% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations (16.4%), and 12.3% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 94.6% of households. Some people also speak Polish (9.1%).
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 Blairstown, NJ, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (29.1%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (28.5%), and residents who report Italian roots (24.7%), and some of the residents are also of Polish ancestry (9.3%), along with some English ancestry residents (6.0%), 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 30 and 45 minutes commuting one-way to work (39.5% of working residents), which is at or a bit above the average length of a commute across all U.S. neighborhoods.
Here most residents (77.1%) 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 (5.4%) . 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.
