Canaan is a very small town located in the state of New York. With a population of 1,540 people and just one neighborhood, Canaan is the 665th largest community in New York. Canaan has a large stock of pre-World War II architecture, making it one of the older and more historic towns in the country.
Canaan is neither predominantly blue-collar nor white-collar, instead having a mixed workforce of both blue-collar and white-collar jobs. Overall, Canaan is a town of professionals, managers, and sales and office workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Canaan who work in management occupations (15.26%), sales jobs (8.22%), and healthcare (7.87%).
And if you like science, one thing you'll find is that Canaan has lots of scientists living in town - whether they be life scientists, physical scientists (like astronomers), or social scientists (like geographers!). So, if you're scientific-minded, you might like it here too.
Of important note, Canaan is also a town of artists. Canaan has more artists, designers and people working in media than 90% of the communities in America. This concentration of artists helps shape Canaan’s character.
Also of interest is that Canaan has more people living here who work in computers and math than 95% of the places in the US.
One interesting thing about the economy is that relatively large numbers of people worked from their home: 29.68% 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.
In addition, Canaan is home to many people who could be described as "urban sophisticates", which are people who are not only wealthy and employed in professional occupations, but highly educated to boot. Urban sophisticates have urbane tastes - whether they reside in a big or small city, a suburb, or a little town. Urban sophisticates support bookstores, quality clothing stores, enjoy luxury travel, and in big cities, they are truly the patrons of the arts, attending and supporting institutions such as opera, symphony, ballet, and theatre.
The town is relatively quiet, having a combination of lower population density and few of those groups of people who have a tendency to be noisy. For example, Canaan has relatively fewer families with younger children, and/or college students. Combined, this makes Canaan a pretty quiet place to live overall. If you like quiet, you will probably enjoy it here.
One downside of living in Canaan, however, is that residents on average have to contend with a long commute, spending on average 31.12 minutes every day commuting to work.
Do you like to read, write and learn? If you move to Canaan, you'll likely find that many of your neighbors like to as well. Canaan is one of the more educated communities in America, with a full 57.99% of its adults having a college degree or even advanced degree, compared to a national average across all communities of 21.84%.
The per capita income in Canaan in 2022 was $65,451, which is wealthy relative to New York and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $261,804 for a family of four.
The people who call Canaan home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Canaan residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Important ancestries of people in Canaan include English, German, Irish, Italian, and Scottish.
The most common language spoken in Canaan is English. Other important languages spoken here include Other Asian languages and French.
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.
If you are planning to retire in New York, 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 New York, 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 99.4% of neighborhoods in NY. If a New York retirement is in your future, this neighborhood should be one of the places you visit. In addition to being an excellent choice for active retirees, this neighborhood is also a very good choice for highly educated executives and urban sophisticates.
Uncrowded roads, rural America and space to be the individual you are. If you like these characteristics, this neighborhood may fit you. With just 43 residents per square mile, is less crowded than 90.5% of all U.S. neighborhoods. 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 30.1%, which is higher than 95.1% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Scottish and Lithuanian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 8.5% of this neighborhood's residents have Scottish ancestry and 1.2% have Lithuanian ancestry.
is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 0.7% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Japanese at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 96.3% of the neighborhoods in America.
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 Canaan are upper-middle income, making it an above average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 84.2% of the neighborhoods in America. In addition, 5.0% 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 63.9% 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, 58.4% 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 15.6% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (14.8%), and 9.9% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 96.6% of households.
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 Canaan, NY, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as English (17.0%). There are also a number of people of German ancestry (17.0%), and residents who report Irish roots (16.5%), and some of the residents are also of Italian ancestry (13.4%), along with some Scottish ancestry residents (8.5%), among others.
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 30 and 45 minutes commuting one-way to work (31.2% of working residents), which is at or a bit above the average length of a commute across all U.S. neighborhoods.
Here most residents (58.6%) 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 (7.6%) . In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.