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.
Prospect Park is a somewhat small borough located in the state of Pennsylvania. With a population of 6,366 people and just one neighborhood, Prospect Park is the 211th largest community in Pennsylvania.
Occupations and Workforce
Unlike some boroughs where white-collar or blue-collar occupations dominate the local economy, Prospect Park is neither predominantly one nor the other. Instead, it has a mixed workforce of both white- and blue-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
Even though Prospect Park is a smaller borough, it has many people who hop on public transportation – mostly the bus for their daily commute to work. Typically, these people are commuting to good jobs in the surrounding cities.
Demographics
The percentage of people in Prospect Park who are college-educated is somewhat higher than the average US community of 21.84%: 25.28% of adults in Prospect Park 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
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.
People
One of the really interesting characteristics about the neighborhood is that, according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive research, it is an excellent choice in which to reside for college students. Due to its popularity among college students who already choose to live here, its walkability, and its above average safety from crime, the neighborhood is ideal for prospective or already-enrolled college students. Between semesters and during school breaks, you'll notice that the excitement here fluctuates with the college seasons. Despite the excitement however, parents of college-age children can rest easy knowing that this neighborhood has an above average safety rating. For each of these reasons, the neighborhood is rated among the top 4.3% of college-friendly places to live in the state of Pennsylvania.
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.
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
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 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
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 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.
