0
menu

West Decatur, PA

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





Overview


West Decatur is a tiny town located in the state of Pennsylvania. With a population of 453 people and just one neighborhood, West Decatur is the 1001st largest community in Pennsylvania. West Decatur has an unusually large stock of pre-World War II architecture, making it one of the older and more historic towns.

Occupations and Workforce

West Decatur is neither predominantly blue-collar nor white-collar, instead having a mixed workforce of both blue-collar and white-collar jobs. Overall, West Decatur is a town of sales and office workers, service providers, and professionals. There are especially a lot of people living in West Decatur who work in sales jobs (33.33%), healthcare (10.39%), and healthcare suport services (7.17%).

Setting & Lifestyle

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

West Decatur 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 population of West Decatur has one of the lowest overall levels of education in the country: only 3.11% of people over 25 hold a college degree. The national average for all municipalities is 21.84%.

The per capita income in West Decatur in 2022 was $19,834, which is low income relative to Pennsylvania and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $79,336 for a family of four. However, West Decatur contains both very wealthy and poor people as well. West Decatur also has one of the higher rates of people living in poverty in the nation, with 39.22% of its population below the federal poverty line.

The people who call West Decatur home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of West Decatur residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Important ancestries of people in West Decatur include Irish, German, English, Polish, and Scots-Irish.

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

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

Migration / Stability

Some neighborhoods have more internal cohesiveness than others. While other neighborhoods feel like a collection of strangers who just happen to live near each other. Sometimes this comes down to not only the personalities of the people in a place, but how long people have been together in that neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research has revealed some interesting things about the rootedness of people in the neighborhood. More residents of the neighborhood live here today that also were living in this same neighborhood five years ago than is found in 96.2% of U.S. neighborhoods. This neighborhood is really made up of people who know each other, don't move often, and have lived here in this very neighborhood for quite a while.

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 West Decatur are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 71.1% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 23.7% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 74.7% of U.S. neighborhoods.

A neighborhood is far different if it is dominated by enlisted military personnel rather than people who earn their living by farming. It is also different if most of the neighbors are clerical support or managers. What is wonderful is the sheer diversity of neighborhoods, allowing you to find the type that fits your lifestyle and aspirations.

In the neighborhood, 28.5% of the working population is employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is manufacturing and laborer occupations, with 28.3% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in executive, management, and professional occupations (26.4%), and 16.1% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.

Languages

The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 99.0% of households.

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 West Decatur, PA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (20.1%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (10.2%), and residents who report English roots (7.0%), and some of the residents are also of Italian ancestry (4.4%), along with some Polish ancestry residents (3.8%), 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 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (38.6% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.

Here most residents (85.5%) 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 (5.9%) . 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:
Average Home Values
Rental Market
Housing Market Details
Neighborhood Setting
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
Violent Crime Comparison
Schools include:
School Ratings
Schools In District
Public School Test Scores
School District Enrollment
Educational Expenditures

comparable neighborhoods nearby