This is a small community in a single neighborhood.
As throughout the site, some neighborhood-level data are reserved for subscribers.
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.
Thompsontown is a tiny borough located in the state of Pennsylvania. With a population of 621 people and just one neighborhood, Thompsontown is the 937th largest community in Pennsylvania.
Occupations and Workforce
Because occupations involving physical labor dominate the local economy, Thompsontown is generally considered to be a blue-collar town. 41.84% of the Thompsontown workforce is employed in blue-collar occupations, compared to the national average of 27.7%. Overall, Thompsontown is a borough of professionals, production and manufacturing workers, and service providers. There are especially a lot of people living in Thompsontown who work in office and administrative support (10.64%), food service (8.16%), and teaching (8.16%).
A relatively large number of people in Thompsontown telecommute to their jobs. Overall, about 10.99% of the workforce works from home. While this may seem like a small number, as a fraction of the total workforce it ranks among the highest in the country. 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 Thompsontown, however, the average commute to work is quite long. On average, people spend 32.75 minutes each day getting to work, which is significantly higher than the national average.
As is often the case in a small borough, Thompsontown doesn't have a public transportation system that people use for their commute.
Demographics
The percentage of adults in Thompsontown who are college-educated is close to the national average for all communities of 21.84%: 17.89% of the adults in Thompsontown have a bachelor's degree or advanced degree.
The per capita income in Thompsontown in 2022 was $25,162, which is low income relative to Pennsylvania, and lower middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $100,648 for a family of four. However, Thompsontown contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
Thompsontown is a somewhat ethnically-diverse borough. The people who call Thompsontown home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Thompsontown residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Important ancestries of people in Thompsontown include German, Irish, Polish, Pennsylvania German, and Italian.
The most common language spoken in Thompsontown is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish 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 Thompsontown, the neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
Diversity
Significantly, 7.5% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak German/Yiddish at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 99.4% of the neighborhoods in America.
The Neighbors
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 Thompsontown are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 62.1% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 30.4% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 81.6% 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, 39.6% 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 24.2% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (18.9%), and 15.4% in clerical, assistant, and tech support 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 neighborhood is English, spoken by 86.9% of households. Other important languages spoken here include German/Yiddish, Spanish and Italian.
Ethnicity / Ancestry
Boston's Beacon Hill blue-blood streets, Brooklyn's Orthodox Jewish enclaves, Los Angeles' Persian neighborhoods. Each has its own culture derived primarily from the ancestries and culture of the residents who call these neighborhoods home. Likewise, each neighborhood in America has its own culture – some more unique than others – based on lifestyle, occupations, the types of households – and importantly – on the ethnicities and ancestries of the people who live in the neighborhood. Understanding where people came from, who their grandparents or great-grandparents were, can help you understand how a neighborhood is today.
In the neighborhood in Thompsontown, PA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (31.4%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (8.9%), and residents who report English roots (4.1%), and some of the residents are also of Italian ancestry (3.4%), along with some Swedish ancestry residents (2.5%), 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 under 15 minutes commuting one-way to work (38.9% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.
Here most residents (69.6%) 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 (15.9%) . 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.
