Brighton is a very small town located in the state of Vermont. With a population of 1,238 people and just one neighborhood, Brighton is the 137th largest community in Vermont. Brighton has an unusually large stock of pre-World War II architecture, making it one of the older and more historic towns.
Unlike some towns where white-collar or blue-collar occupations dominate the local economy, Brighton is neither predominantly one nor the other. Instead, it has a mixed workforce of both white- and blue-collar jobs. Overall, Brighton is a town of service providers, professionals, and sales and office workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Brighton who work in food service (19.59%), office and administrative support (11.16%), and management occupations (10.48%).
And if you like science, one thing you'll find is that Brighton 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.
Telecommuters are a relatively large percentage of the workforce: 9.86% of people work from home. While this number may seem small overall, as a fraction of the total workforce it is high relative to the nation. 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.
Another notable thing is that Brighton is a major vacation destination. Much of the town’s population is seasonal: many people own second homes and only live there part-time, during the vacation season. The effect on the local economy is that many of the businesses are dependent on tourist dollars, and may operate only during the high season. As the vacation season ends, Brighton’s population drops significantly, such that year-round residents will notice that the city is a much quieter 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!) Brighton 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. Brighton has few renters and college students. But the biggest reason it is quieter in Brighton than in most places in America, is that there are just simply fewer people living here. If you think trees make good neighbors, Brighton may be for you.
Being a small town, Brighton does not have a public transit system used by locals to get to and from work.
The percentage of people in Brighton who are college-educated is somewhat higher than the average US community of 21.84%: 27.27% of adults in Brighton have at least a bachelor's degree.
The per capita income in Brighton in 2022 was $35,689, which is lower middle income relative to Vermont, and upper middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $142,756 for a family of four. However, Brighton contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
The people who call Brighton home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Brighton residents report their race to be White, followed by Asian. Important ancestries of people in Brighton include English, Irish, French, French Canadian, and Italian.
The most common language spoken in Brighton is English. Other important languages spoken here include Italian 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.
Vacant homes and apartments are a significant characteristic of this neighborhood. In fact, with 46.7% of the residential real estate vacant, the neighborhood claims the distinction of having a higher vacancy rate than 98.4% of the neighborhoods in America. This can either be because much of the property is seasonally occupied, like in many vacation areas, or that much of the real estate is more permanently abandoned.
In addition, this neighborhood has wide open spaces, few people, and lots of space to stretch out. If you like locations that fit that description, you may like this neighborhood. Based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis, with only 22 people per square mile living here, this neighborhood is less crowded than 94.3% of America.
If you're planning where to retire, the neighborhood in Brighton is a great option to consider. According to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive retirement dream area analysis, it's peaceful and quiet, has above average safety ratings compared to other neighborhoods in VT, offers a wide range of housing options, and has already attracted an enviable mix of college educated seniors. This neighborhood ranks as better for retirement living than 89.1% of the neighborhoods in Vermont. If you are considering retiring to Vermont, this is a good neighborhood to look at.
Did you know that the neighborhood has more French Canadian and French ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 10.3% of this neighborhood's residents have French Canadian ancestry and 14.1% have French 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 Brighton are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 77.8% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 11.0% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 51.6% 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, 32.1% 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 executive, management, and professional occupations, with 29.2% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations (22.3%), and 13.9% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
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 94.8% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Italian, Spanish and French.
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 Brighton, VT, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as English (19.8%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (15.5%), and residents who report French roots (14.1%), and some of the residents are also of French Canadian ancestry (10.3%), along with some Italian ancestry residents (7.0%), 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 (31.8% of working residents), which is at or a bit above the average length of a commute across all U.S. neighborhoods.
Here most residents (76.6%) 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 (8.9%) . In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.