Bessemer City, NC (West Gastonia)

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 West Gastonia neighborhood in Bessemer City are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 94.4% of U.S. neighborhoods. In addition, 5.8% 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 62.2% 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 West Gastonia neighborhood, 38.7% 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 20.5% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (20.5%), and 20.3% in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants.

Languages

The most common language spoken in the West Gastonia neighborhood is English, spoken by 94.1% of households. Some people also speak Spanish (3.4%).

Ethnicity / Ancestry

Culture is the shared learned behavior of peoples. Undeniably, different ethnicities and ancestries have different cultural traditions, and as a result, neighborhoods with concentrations of residents of one or another ethnicities or ancestries will express those cultures. It is what makes the North End in Boston so fun to visit for the Italian restaurants, bakeries, culture, and charm, and similarly, why people enjoy visiting Chinatown in San Francisco.

In the West Gastonia neighborhood in Bessemer City, NC, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (7.7%). There are also a number of people of English ancestry (6.9%), and residents who report South American roots (3.3%), and some of the residents are also of Italian ancestry (2.4%), along with some Scots-Irish ancestry residents (2.2%), among others.

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 West Gastonia neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (45.1% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.

Here most residents (87.0%) 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 (9.2%) . In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.