Durham, NC (Spring Valley / West Hills)

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 Spring Valley / West Hills neighborhood in Durham are upper-middle income, making it an above average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 69.6% of the neighborhoods in America. With 16.0% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 62.0% 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 Spring Valley / West Hills neighborhood, 68.9% of the working population is employed in executive, management, and professional occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is manufacturing and laborer occupations, with 16.3% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (7.6%), and 7.3% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.

Languages

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 Spring Valley / West Hills neighborhood is English, spoken by 86.6% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish, Tagalog (the first language of the Philippine region) and Polish.

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 Spring Valley / West Hills neighborhood in Durham, NC, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as English (24.0%). There are also a number of people of German ancestry (11.9%), and residents who report Irish roots (9.5%), and some of the residents are also of Italian ancestry (5.6%), along with some Scots-Irish ancestry residents (4.3%), among others.

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 Spring Valley / West Hills neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (54.0% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.

Here most residents (74.3%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.