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Sterling, AK

This is a small community in a single neighborhood. As throughout the site, some neighborhood-level data are reserved for subscribers.





Overview


Sterling is a somewhat small town located in the state of Alaska. With a population of 5,918 people and just one neighborhood, Sterling is the tenth largest community in Alaska.

Sterling real estate is some of the most expensive in Alaska, although Sterling house values don't compare to the most expensive real estate in the U.S.

Occupations and Workforce

Unlike some towns, Sterling isn’t mainly white- or blue-collar. Instead, the most prevalent occupations for people in Sterling are a mix of both white- and blue-collar jobs. Overall, Sterling is a town of managers, professionals, and sales and office workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Sterling who work in management occupations (19.68%), office and administrative support (11.49%), and teaching (8.01%).

Telecommuters are a relatively large percentage of the workforce: 14.05% of people work from home. While this number may seem small overall, as a fraction of the total workforce it is high relative to the nation. 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

Because of many things, Sterling is a very good place for families to consider. With an enviable combination of good schools, low crime, college-educated neighbors who tend to support education because of their own experiences, and a high rate of home ownership in predominantly single-family properties, Sterling really has some of the features that families look for when choosing a good community to raise children. Is Sterling perfect? Of course not, and if you like frenetic nightlife, it will be far from your cup of tea. But overall this is a solid community, with many things to recommend it as a family-friendly place to live.

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, Sterling is worth considering.

Demographics

The education level of Sterling citizens is substantially higher than the typical US community, as 29.18% of adults in Sterling have at least a bachelor's degree.

The per capita income in Sterling in 2018 was $61,101, which is wealthy relative to Alaska and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $244,404 for a family of four. However, Sterling contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.

The people who call Sterling home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Sterling residents report their race to be White, followed by Native American. Important ancestries of people in Sterling include German, English, Irish, Polish, and European.

The most common language spoken in Sterling is English. Other important languages spoken here include Italian and Russian.

Notable & Unique Neighborhood Characteristics

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.

Real Estate

This neighborhood has wide open spaces, few people, and lots of space to stretch out. If you like locations that fit that description, you may like this neighborhood. Based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis, with only 4 people per square mile living here, this neighborhood is less crowded than 98.6% of America. One of the notable things about is that it is one of the quietest neighborhoods in America, according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis and quantitative rating of quietness. When you are here, you will find it to be very quiet. If quiet and peaceful are your cup of tea, you may have found a great place for you.

In addition, despite all of the residential real estate here in the neighborhood, NeighborhoodScout has discovered that much of it is vacant. In resort or second-home vacation areas, this naturally occurs because homes and apartments are seasonally occupied, and empty for a portion of the year. In non-vacation or resort areas, however, this can be an indicator of property abandonment or a weak real estate market. The vacancy rate here is 36.4%, which is higher than 96.8% of all U.S. neighborhoods.

People

If you're planning where to retire, the neighborhood in Sterling is a great option to consider. According to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive retirement dream area analysis, it's peaceful and quiet, has above average safety ratings compared to other neighborhoods in AK, offers a wide range of housing options, and has already attracted an enviable mix of college educated seniors. This neighborhood ranks as better for retirement living than 89.3% of the neighborhoods in Alaska. If you are considering retiring to Alaska, this is a good neighborhood to look at.

Diversity

Did you know that the neighborhood has more Native American ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 3.0% of this neighborhood's residents have Native American ancestry.

The Neighbors

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 neighborhood in Sterling are upper-middle income, making it an above average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 62.7% of the neighborhoods in America. With 13.3% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 56.7% 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, 43.0% of the working population is employed in executive, management, and professional occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is manufacturing and laborer occupations, with 27.6% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (16.5%), and 12.3% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.

Languages

The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 95.8% of households. Some people also speak Italian (2.3%).

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 neighborhood in Sterling, AK, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (18.6%). There are also a number of people of English ancestry (14.9%), and residents who report Irish roots (12.4%), and some of the residents are also of Polish ancestry (5.1%), along with some Norwegian ancestry residents (4.4%), 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 between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (31.9% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.

Here most residents (64.7%) 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 (16.9%) . In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.


Real Estate includes:
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Economics & Demographics include:
Lifestyle & Special Character
Household Types
Commute To Work
Migration & Mobility
Race & Ethnic Diversity
Employment Industries & Occupations
Income & Unemployment Rate
Higher Education Attainment
Crime includes:
Neighborhood Crime Index
Crimes Per Square Mile
Property Crime Comparison
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Schools include:
School Ratings
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