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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.
Ben Avon is a very small borough located in the state of Pennsylvania. With a population of 1,850 people and just one neighborhood, Ben Avon is the 661st largest community in Pennsylvania. Much of the housing stock in Ben Avon was built prior to World War II, making it one of the older and more historic boroughs in the country.
Ben Avon real estate is some of the most expensive in Pennsylvania, although Ben Avon house values don't compare to the most expensive real estate in the U.S.
Occupations and Workforce
Ben Avon is a decidedly white-collar borough, with fully 91.83% of the workforce employed in white-collar jobs, well above the national average. Overall, Ben Avon is a borough of professionals, sales and office workers, and managers. There are especially a lot of people living in Ben Avon who work in office and administrative support (12.26%), sales jobs (10.49%), and management occupations (9.38%).
Also of interest is that Ben Avon has more people living here who work in computers and math than 95% of the places in the US.
Of important note, Ben Avon is also a borough of artists. Ben Avon has more artists, designers and people working in media than 90% of the communities in America. This concentration of artists helps shape Ben Avon’s character.
One interesting thing about the economy is that relatively large numbers of people worked from their home: 23.12% of the workforce. While this number may seem small overall, as a fraction of the total workforce this is high compared to the rest of the county. 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
In addition, Ben Avon is home to many people who could be described as "urban sophisticates". Urban sophisticates are educated, wealthy, executives and professionals, who have urbane tastes in books, food, and travel, whether they actually live in a big city, or choose to reside in a small town. In big or medium-sized cities, urban sophisticates tend to frequent art institutions such as opera, symphonies, ballet, live theatre, and museums.
Ben Avon is a good choice for families with children because of several factors. Many other families with children live here, making it a place where both parents and children are more likely to develop social ties with other families. The borough’s good public school district and large population of college-educated adults provide an environment conducive to academic success. Many people own their own single-family homes, providing areas for children to play and stability in the community. Finally, Ben Avon’s overall crime rate is lower than average for the country.
Demographics
Do you like to read, write and learn? If you move to Ben Avon, you'll likely find that many of your neighbors like to as well. Ben Avon is one of the more educated communities in America, with a full 63.88% of its adults having a college degree or even advanced degree, compared to a national average across all communities of 21.84%.
The per capita income in Ben Avon in 2022 was $55,513, which is wealthy relative to Pennsylvania and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $222,052 for a family of four.
The people who call Ben Avon home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Ben Avon residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Important ancestries of people in Ben Avon include German, Irish, English, Italian, and Polish.
The most common language spoken in Ben Avon is English. Other important languages spoken here include Polish and Italian.
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 Ben Avon, the neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
People
If you're a regular supporter of the arts and enjoy outings to the theatre, weekend boutique-ing, or even a finely aged wine with dinner, than you're in good company with the people of the neighborhood. This neighborhood is uniquely immersed with more "urban sophisticates" than 97.5% of neighborhoods across the country. The people here truly stand out as a class among their own. They are an exclusive community characterized by refined tastes, cultural inclinations, and the means to live well. Urban sophisticates live a big city lifestyle, whether or not they live in or near a big city. They are educated executives or managers by week, and serial patrons of the arts by weekend. If this lifestyle pertains to you, than you'll certainly feel right at home in the neighborhood. In addition to being an excellent choice for urban sophisticates, this neighborhood is also a very good choice for highly educated executives.
In addition, with more than 1.8% of residents living with a same sex partner, is truly a neighborhood that stands out from the rest in this regard. In fact, exclusive analysis by NeighborhoodScout reveals that this neighborhood has a greater concentration of same sex couples than 96.2% of U.S. neighborhoods.
Real Estate
Do you watch 'This Old House' on Public Television? Do you love the idea of fixing up a Colonial or Victorian era home, complete with the charm of yesteryear? Do you like to stroll or drive streets lined with gracious older residences? If you found yourself nodding yes to any of these questions, you are going to be interested in this unique neighborhood. The neighborhood stands out on a national scale for the sheer concentration of historic residences it contains: 71.8% of the residential real estate here was built from 1939 or earlier, some much earlier. This is a greater concentration of historic homes than 98.9% of the neighborhoods in the United States.
Diversity
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Slovak and Lebanese ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 2.7% of this neighborhood's residents have Slovak ancestry and 2.0% have Lebanese ancestry.
is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 7.4% 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 96.5% 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 Ben Avon are upper-middle income, making it an above average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 74.1% of the neighborhoods in America. In addition, 6.5% 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 60.1% of America'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, 55.8% 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 19.3% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (16.7%), and 8.2% in manufacturing and laborer occupations.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 97.8% of households. Some people also speak Polish (7.4%).
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 Ben Avon, PA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (33.2%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (24.8%), and residents who report English roots (17.7%), and some of the residents are also of Italian ancestry (15.9%), along with some Polish ancestry residents (5.5%), 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 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (48.5% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (67.3%) 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.
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.
