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.
Prospect Park is a somewhat small borough located in the state of Pennsylvania. With a population of 6,374 people and just one neighborhood, Prospect Park is the 211th largest community in Pennsylvania.
Occupations and Workforce
Prospect Park is neither predominantly blue-collar nor white-collar, instead having a mixed workforce of both blue-collar and white-collar jobs. Overall, Prospect Park is a borough of professionals, service providers, and sales and office workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Prospect Park who work in office and administrative support (13.13%), management occupations (12.68%), and law enforcement and fire fighting (7.21%).
Also of interest is that Prospect Park has more people living here who work in computers and math than 95% of the places in the US.
Of important note, Prospect Park is also a borough of artists. Prospect Park has more artists, designers and people working in media than 90% of the communities in America. This concentration of artists helps shape Prospect Park’s character.
Setting & Lifestyle
In Prospect Park, a lot of people use the bus to get to work every day though Prospect Park is a relatively small borough. Those that ride the bus are primarily traveling out of town to good jobs in other cities.
Demographics
The overall education level of Prospect Park is somewhat higher than in the average US city of 21.84%: 25.28% of adults 25 and older in the borough have at least a bachelor's degree.
The per capita income in Prospect Park in 2022 was $38,354, which is upper middle income relative to Pennsylvania and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $153,416 for a family of four. However, Prospect Park contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
Prospect Park is a very ethnically-diverse borough. The people who call Prospect Park home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Prospect Park residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Important ancestries of people in Prospect Park include Irish, German, Italian, English, and Liberian.
The most common language spoken in Prospect Park is English. Other important languages spoken here include Tagalog and Chinese.
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 love row houses and attached homes, you will probably really like the neighborhood. The ambiance, the charm, of row houses is something special. And in sheer abundance of row houses, this neighborhood truly stands out. The real estate here has a higher proportion of row houses and attached homes than nearly any neighborhood in America. In fact, 25.1% of the residential real estate here is classified as row houses and attached homes.
People
The neighborhood stands out within Pennsylvania for its college student friendly environment. NeighborhoodScout's analysis reveals that this neighborhood is home to a number of college students, is relatively walkable, and above average in safety. In combination, this makes it stand out for a good place for college students to consider. Because a number of college students live here, this neighborhood may be close to a college campus and offer certain amenities nearby geared towards the student body. While it's not an environment for everyone, ambitious scholars can enjoy seasonal excitement between semesters and school breaks, and parents can rest easy knowing that the area has an above average safety rating. For each of these reasons, the neighborhood is rated among the top 5.1% of college-friendly places to live in PA.
Diversity
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Irish ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 23.7% of this neighborhood's residents have Irish ancestry.
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 Prospect Park are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 62.0% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 20.1% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 68.9% of U.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, 40.0% 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 22.1% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations (20.1%), and 17.8% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 94.3% of households. Some people also speak Tagalog (the first language of the Philippine region) (2.2%).
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 Prospect Park, PA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Irish (23.7%). There are also a number of people of German ancestry (16.0%), and residents who report Italian roots (13.0%), and some of the residents are also of English ancestry (7.4%), along with some Sub-Saharan African ancestry residents (4.7%), 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 under 15 minutes commuting one-way to work (40.2% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.
Here most residents (74.4%) 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 (11.3%) . 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.
