Parksley is a tiny coastal town (i.e. on the ocean, a bay, or inlet) located in the state of Virginia. With a population of 809 people and just one neighborhood, Parksley is the 305th largest community in Virginia. Parksley has a large stock of pre-World War II architecture, making it one of the older and more historic towns in the country.
Parksley is a blue-collar town, with 49.45% of people working in blue-collar occupations, while the average in America is just 27.7%. Overall, Parksley is a town of professionals, construction workers and builders, and sales and office workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Parksley who work in office and administrative support (8.79%), sales jobs (8.52%), and management occupations (7.97%).
Also of interest is that Parksley has more people living here who work in computers and math than 95% of the places in the US.
Parksley is also nautical, which means that parts of it are somewhat historic and touch the ocean or tidal bodies of water, such as inlets and bays. Quite often, nautical areas such as these attract visitors and locals who come to enjoy the scenery and various waterfront activities.
As is often the case in a small town, Parksley doesn't have a public transportation system that people use for their commute.
In terms of college education, Parksley is somewhat better educated than the 21.84% who have a 4-year degree or higher in the typical US community: 28.60% of adults 25 and older in the town have at least a bachelor's degree.
The per capita income in Parksley in 2022 was $34,311, which is middle income relative to Virginia and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $137,244 for a family of four. However, Parksley contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
Parksley is an extremely ethnically-diverse town. The people who call Parksley home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Parksley residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Parksley also has a sizeable Hispanic population (people of Hispanic origin can be of any race). People of Hispanic or Latino origin account for 13.81% of the town’s residents. Important ancestries of people in Parksley include Haitian, English, African, Irish, and Canadian.
In addition, Parksley has a lot of people living here who were born outside of the US (25.83%).
The most common language spoken in Parksley is English. Other important languages spoken here include French and Spanish.
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.
is a neighborhood that is on the ocean, a bay, or inlet. Many times, such places have amenities that bring locals and visitors to the waterfront for recreational activities or to check out the scenery. In some densely populated areas that are less financially well-off, the neighborhood waterfront can be relatively industrial and less open to recreation. In addition to being coastal, is a very nautical neighborhood, meaning that it is somewhat historic, walkable, densely populated and on the water. This gives the neighborhood a very nautical feel, with some seaside and shipping feel, which some may really enjoy the sights and sounds of.
Each year, fewer and fewer Americans make their living as farmers, foresters, or fishers. But the neighborhood truly stands out among U.S. neighborhoods. According to exclusive NeighborhoodScout analysis, this neighborhood has a greater proportion of farmers, foresters, or fishers than 95.4% of all American neighborhoods. This is truly a unique cultural characteristic of this neighborhood.
While most Americans do drive to work alone each day, the neighborhood stands out by having 88.2% of commuters doing so, which is a higher proportion of people driving alone to work than NeighborhoodScout found in 95.1% of all American neighborhoods.
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Haitian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 6.5% of this neighborhood's residents have Haitian ancestry.
is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 10.6% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak French at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 99.2% of the neighborhoods in America.
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 Parksley are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 80.4% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 23.8% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 74.8% 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, 39.6% 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 25.1% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (16.8%), and 14.8% in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants.
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 85.2% of households. Other important languages spoken here include French and Spanish.
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 Parksley, VA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Haitian (6.5%). There are also a number of people of Mexican ancestry (6.4%), and residents who report Irish roots (4.6%), and some of the residents are also of English ancestry (4.4%), along with some Italian ancestry residents (3.8%), among others. In addition, 11.7% of the residents of this neighborhood were born in another country.
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 under 15 minutes commuting one-way to work (39.0% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.
Here most residents (88.2%) 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 (7.3%) . In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.