Norfolk is a very small town located in the state of New York. With a population of 1,238 people and just one neighborhood, Norfolk is the 715th largest community in New York. Much of the housing stock in Norfolk was built prior to World War II, making it one of the older and more historic towns in the country.
Unlike some towns where white-collar or blue-collar occupations dominate the local economy, Norfolk is neither predominantly one nor the other. Instead, it has a mixed workforce of both white- and blue-collar jobs. Overall, Norfolk is a town of service providers, professionals, and transportation and shipping workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Norfolk who work in healthcare suport services (17.80%), law enforcement and fire fighting (12.76%), and teaching (11.87%).
Residents will find that the town is relatively quiet. This is because it is not over-populated, and it has fewer college students, renters, and young children - all of whom can be noisy at times. So, if you're looking for a relatively peaceful place to live, Norfolk is worth considering.
Norfolk is very much a car-oriented town. This is because the population of Norfolk isn't large enough or dense enough to support an extensive public transit system. It has a lot of rural roads, and the distance between houses can be quite large, which together tends to discourage walking and bicycling to work. 97.63% of residents commute to work in their own car (and the drive is typically to a job out of town). People also tend to drive out of town for other services as well, such as shopping, doctors appointments, and more.
As is often the case in a small town, Norfolk doesn't have a public transportation system that people use for their commute.
The citizens of Norfolk have a very low rate of college education: just 6.88% of people over 25 have a bachelor's degree or advanced degree, compared to a national average of 21.84% for all cities.
The per capita income in Norfolk in 2022 was $27,210, which is low income relative to New York, and lower middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $108,840 for a family of four. However, Norfolk contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
The people who call Norfolk home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Norfolk residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Important ancestries of people in Norfolk include French, English, Irish, German, and Dutch.
The most common language spoken in Norfolk is English. Other important languages spoken here include Polish and Greek.
When you see a neighborhood for the first time, the most important thing is often the way it looks, like its homes and its setting. Some places look the same, but they only reveal their true character after living in them for a while because they contain a unique mix of occupational or cultural groups. This neighborhood is very unique in some important ways, according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive exploration and analysis.
While most Americans do drive to work alone each day, the neighborhood stands out by having 98.3% of commuters doing so, which is a higher proportion of people driving alone to work than NeighborhoodScout found in 99.9% of all American neighborhoods.
Did you know that the neighborhood has more French Canadian and French ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 7.7% of this neighborhood's residents have French Canadian ancestry and 12.3% have French ancestry.
is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 1.1% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Native American languages at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 97.7% of the neighborhoods in America.
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 neighborhood in Norfolk are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 74.0% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 18.7% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 66.6% 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, 32.3% 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 manufacturing and laborer occupations, with 32.0% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in executive, management, and professional occupations (25.3%), and 10.4% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 97.6% of households.
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 Norfolk, NY, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Irish (15.3%). There are also a number of people of French ancestry (12.3%), and residents who report English roots (9.6%), and some of the residents are also of French Canadian ancestry (7.7%), along with some German ancestry residents (7.2%), 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 neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (53.4% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (98.3%) 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.