Valdese, NC (Rutherford College)

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 Rutherford College neighborhood in Valdese are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 64.9% of U.S. neighborhoods. In addition, 4.3% 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 66.9% 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 Rutherford College neighborhood, 39.6% 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 28.4% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations (22.5%), and 9.6% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.

Languages

The most common language spoken in the Rutherford College neighborhood is English, spoken by 98.4% of households. Some people also speak Italian (3.5%).

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 Rutherford College neighborhood in Valdese, NC, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as English (15.6%). There are also a number of people of German ancestry (11.3%), and residents who report Irish roots (8.7%), and some of the residents are also of Scots-Irish ancestry (5.7%), along with some Italian ancestry residents (5.0%), 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 Rutherford College neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (40.8% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.

Here most residents (90.0%) 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.