Harveys Lake is a very small borough located in the state of Pennsylvania. With a population of 2,800 people and just one neighborhood, Harveys Lake is the 528th largest community in Pennsylvania.
Unlike some boroughs where white-collar or blue-collar occupations dominate the local economy, Harveys Lake is neither predominantly one nor the other. Instead, it has a mixed workforce of both white- and blue-collar jobs. Overall, Harveys Lake is a borough of professionals, managers, and sales and office workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Harveys Lake who work in management occupations (14.37%), healthcare (9.79%), and office and administrative support (9.60%).
Of important note, Harveys Lake is also a borough of artists. Harveys Lake has more artists, designers and people working in media than 90% of the communities in America. This concentration of artists helps shape Harveys Lake’s character.
One interesting thing about the economy is that relatively large numbers of people worked from their home: 8.57% 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.
It is a fairly quiet borough because there are relatively few of those groups of people who have a tendency to be noisy. (Children, for example, often can't help themselves from being noisy, and being parents ourselves, we know!) Harveys Lake has relatively few families with children living at home, and is quieter because of it. Renters and college students, for their own reasons, can also be noisy. Harveys Lake has few renters and college students. But the biggest reason it is quieter in Harveys Lake than in most places in America, is that there are just simply fewer people living here. If you think trees make good neighbors, Harveys Lake may be for you.
In Harveys Lake, however, the average commute to work is quite long. On average, people spend 35.88 minutes each day getting to work, which is significantly higher than the national average.
Harveys Lake is a small borough, and as such doesn't have a public transit system that people use to get to and from their jobs every day.
The education level of Harveys Lake ranks among the highest in the nation. Of the 25-and-older adult population in Harveys Lake, 40.59% have at least a bachelor's degree. The typical US community has just 21.84% of its adults holding a bachelor's degree or graduate degree.
The per capita income in Harveys Lake in 2022 was $54,284, which is wealthy relative to Pennsylvania and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $217,136 for a family of four. However, Harveys Lake contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
The people who call Harveys Lake home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Harveys Lake residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Important ancestries of people in Harveys Lake include Irish, Polish, German, Italian, and English.
The most common language spoken in Harveys Lake is English. Other important languages spoken here include Polish and Spanish.
The way a neighborhood looks and feels when you walk or drive around it, from its setting, its buildings, and its flavor, can make all the difference. This neighborhood has some really cool things about the way it looks and feels as revealed by NeighborhoodScout's exclusive research. This might include anything from the housing stock to the types of households living here to how people get around.
Of note is NeighborhoodScout's research finding that the neighborhood has some of the lowest rates of children living in poverty of any neighborhood in the United States. In a nation where approximately 1 in 4 children are living in poverty, the community truly stands out from the rest in this regard.
In addition, if you are planning to retire in Pennsylvania, this neighborhood should be on your must-see list. For many reasons, may be considered a retiree's dream neighborhood. According to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis and metrics, it's peaceful and quiet, has above average safety from crime compared to other neighborhoods in Pennsylvania, while also offering a diverse range of housing options. This, along with the vibrant mix of very educated seniors and other age groups who choose to live here, makes the neighborhood more retiree-friendly than 97.8% of neighborhoods in PA. If a Pennsylvania retirement is in your future, this neighborhood should be one of the places you visit.
Whether walking, biking, riding, or driving, the length of one's commute is an important factor for one's quality of life. The neighborhood stands out for its commute length, according to NeighborhoodScout's analysis. Long commutes can be brutal. They take time, money, and energy, leaving less of you for yourself and your family. The residents of the neighborhood unfortunately have the distinction of having, on average, a longer commute than most any neighborhood in America. 10.5% of commuters here travel more than one hour just one-way to work. That is more than two hours per day. This percentage with two-hour + round-trip commutes is higher than NeighborhoodScout found in 96.0% of all neighborhoods in America.
Vacant homes and apartments are a significant characteristic of this neighborhood. In fact, with 30.7% of the residential real estate vacant, the neighborhood claims the distinction of having a higher vacancy rate than 95.0% of the neighborhoods in America. This can either be because much of the property is seasonally occupied, like in many vacation areas, or that much of the real estate is more permanently abandoned.
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Polish and Welsh ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 22.9% of this neighborhood's residents have Polish ancestry and 5.3% have Welsh ancestry.
is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 22.4% 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 99.8% 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 Harveys Lake are middle-income, making it a moderate income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 47.9% of the neighborhoods in America. In addition, 0.0% 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 100.0% of America's neighborhoods.
What we choose to do for a living reflects who we are. Each neighborhood has a different mix of occupations represented, and together these tell you about the neighborhood and help you understand if this neighborhood may fit your lifestyle.
In the neighborhood, 51.2% 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 21.6% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations (16.2%), and 10.9% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
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 neighborhood is English, spoken by 92.6% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Polish and Spanish.
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 Harveys Lake, PA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Irish (30.0%). There are also a number of people of Polish ancestry (22.9%), and residents who report German roots (19.1%), and some of the residents are also of Italian ancestry (7.3%), along with some English ancestry residents (5.5%), 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 neighborhood spend between 30 and 45 minutes commuting one-way to work (45.2% of working residents), which is at or a bit above the average length of a commute across all U.S. neighborhoods. However, there is also a significant group of residents (10.5%) who commute over an hour in each direction.
Here most residents (88.9%) 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.