Boston, MA (Dorchester Center South)

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 Dorchester Center South neighborhood in Boston are upper-middle income, making it an above average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 63.8% of the neighborhoods in America. With 20.7% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 69.8% 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 Dorchester Center South neighborhood, 29.4% of the working population is employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations, with 24.8% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in executive, management, and professional occupations (24.0%), and 21.8% in manufacturing and laborer 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 Dorchester Center South neighborhood is English, spoken by 70.0% of households. Other important languages spoken here include French, Spanish, African languages and Portuguese.

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 Dorchester Center South neighborhood in Boston, MA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Haitian (19.3%). There are also a number of people of Sub-Saharan African ancestry (15.4%), and residents who report Jamaican roots (9.9%), and some of the residents are also of Dominican ancestry (3.0%), along with some Irish ancestry residents (2.5%), among others. In addition, 30.6% 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 Dorchester Center South neighborhood spend between 30 and 45 minutes commuting one-way to work (32.4% of working residents), which is at or a bit above the average length of a commute across all U.S. neighborhoods.

Here most residents (57.4%) 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 (10.6%) and 10.3% of residents also ride the bus for their daily commute. In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.