Dryden is a tiny town located in the state of Virginia. With a population of 986 people and just one neighborhood, Dryden is the 288th largest community in Virginia.
Dryden is a decidedly white-collar town, with fully 90.16% of the workforce employed in white-collar jobs, well above the national average. Overall, Dryden is a town of professionals, service providers, and sales and office workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Dryden who work in law enforcement and fire fighting (39.34%), teaching (26.78%), and sales jobs (7.65%).
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, Dryden has relatively fewer families with younger children, and/or college students. Combined, this makes Dryden a pretty quiet place to live overall. If you like quiet, you will probably enjoy it here.
Despite the fact that it is a small town, Dryden has quite a few people who take public transportation – mostly the bus - for their daily commute to work. This helps to fill a real need in the town for affordable transportation.
The education level of Dryden citizens, measured as those with bachelor's degrees or advanced degrees, is similar to the national average for all American cities and towns. 19.44% of adults 25 and older in Dryden have a college degree.
The per capita income in Dryden in 2022 was $28,051, which is lower middle income relative to Virginia and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $112,204 for a family of four. However, Dryden contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
The people who call Dryden home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Dryden residents report their race to be White. Important ancestries of people in Dryden include English, Irish, French Canadian, German, and Scots-Irish.
The most common language spoken in Dryden is English. Other important languages spoken here include Polish and Spanish.
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.
The government often provides some of the more stable jobs in the economy. From local, to state, to federal government workers, the government can also be a major employer. What NeighborhoodScout's analysis revealed, is that the neighborhood in particular stands out when compared nationally for the proportion of its working residents who are employed by the government. At 15.2% of its workforce, this neighborhood has a greater concentration of government workers than 97.3% of U.S. neighborhoods.
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Canadian and Austrian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 1.5% of this neighborhood's residents have Canadian ancestry and 1.2% have Austrian ancestry.
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 Dryden are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 88.2% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 14.0% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 59.1% of U.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, 38.8% 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 24.5% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations (21.6%), and 15.2% in government jobs, whether they are in local, state, or federal positions.
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 99.3% of households.
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 Dryden, VA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as English (22.1%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (12.0%), and residents who report German roots (9.7%), and some of the residents are also of Scots-Irish ancestry (3.2%), along with some French Canadian ancestry residents (2.1%), 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 neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (43.6% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (83.2%) 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 (11.7%) . In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.