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Petersham, MA

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





Overview


Petersham is a very small town located in the state of Massachusetts. With a population of 1,181 people and just one neighborhood, Petersham is the 313th largest community in Massachusetts. Petersham has an unusually large stock of pre-World War II architecture, making it one of the older and more historic towns.

Occupations and Workforce

Petersham is neither predominantly blue-collar nor white-collar, instead having a mixed workforce of both blue-collar and white-collar jobs. Overall, Petersham is a town of professionals, sales and office workers, and managers. There are especially a lot of people living in Petersham who work in office and administrative support (14.95%), management occupations (12.99%), and sales jobs (8.01%).

A relatively large number of people in Petersham telecommute to their jobs. Overall, about 14.49% 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

Because of many things, Petersham 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, Petersham really has some of the features that families look for when choosing a good community to raise children. Is Petersham 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.

It is a fairly quiet town 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!) Petersham 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. Petersham has few renters and college students. But the biggest reason it is quieter in Petersham than in most places in America, is that there are just simply fewer people living here. If you think trees make good neighbors, Petersham may be for you.

One downside of living in Petersham is that it can take a long time to commute to work. In Petersham, the average commute to work is 33.31 minutes, which is quite a bit higher than the national average.

Petersham is a small town, and as such doesn't have a public transit system that people use to get to and from their jobs every day.

Demographics

The education level of Petersham ranks among the highest in the nation. Of the 25-and-older adult population in Petersham, 42.93% 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 Petersham in 2022 was $47,450, which is lower middle income relative to Massachusetts, and wealthy relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $189,800 for a family of four. However, Petersham contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.

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

The most common language spoken in Petersham is English. Other important languages spoken here include Polish and Spanish.

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 Petersham, the neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.

Real Estate

Unpopulated, and rural, the neighborhood is one of the least crowded neighborhoods in all of America. If you like open space, no traffic, and lots of room, this neighborhood may be just what you are looking for. According to NeighborhoodScout's leading research, this neighborhood is less densely populated than 94.3% of the neighborhoods in 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.

People

If you're nearing retirement age, or in retirement, the is an excellent choice for you to consider for top-quality retirement living. This neighborhood is rated by NeighborhoodScout as among the top 8.3% of retiree-friendly neighborhoods in Massachusetts, combining peace and quiet, safety from crime, and offering diverse housing options from which retirees can choose. Maybe it's because of these amenities that a large proportion of the residents here are college educated seniors, mixed with other age groups. For these and other reasons, NeighborhoodScout identifies this neighborhood as a top-notch place to consider if you are thinking of or planning to retire in Massachusetts.

Diversity

Did you know that the neighborhood has more French Canadian and Lithuanian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 7.6% of this neighborhood's residents have French Canadian ancestry and 1.4% have Lithuanian 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 Petersham are upper-middle income, making it an above average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 78.2% of the neighborhoods in America. In addition, 5.5% 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 62.4% 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 neighborhood, 44.8% 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 23.0% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (16.2%), and 15.5% 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 95.9% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Polish and Spanish.

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 neighborhood in Petersham, MA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Irish (22.8%). There are also a number of people of English ancestry (22.3%), and residents who report German roots (10.7%), and some of the residents are also of French Canadian ancestry (7.6%), along with some French ancestry residents (7.2%), among others.

Getting to Work

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 45 minutes and one hour commuting one-way to work (27.0% of working residents), longer and tougher than most commutes in America.

Here most residents (76.4%) 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 (7.2%) . In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.


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Race & Ethnic Diversity
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Crime includes:
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Schools include:
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