Chester is a very small town located in the state of Vermont. With a population of 3,008 people and just one neighborhood, Chester is the 75th largest community in Vermont.
Unlike some towns where white-collar or blue-collar occupations dominate the local economy, Chester is neither predominantly one nor the other. Instead, it has a mixed workforce of both white- and blue-collar jobs. Overall, Chester is a town of professionals, managers, and service providers. There are especially a lot of people living in Chester who work in management occupations (16.66%), office and administrative support (9.26%), and teaching (9.20%).
One interesting thing about the economy is that relatively large numbers of people worked from their home: 11.54% 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.
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!) Chester 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. Chester has few renters and college students. But the biggest reason it is quieter in Chester than in most places in America, is that there are just simply fewer people living here. If you think trees make good neighbors, Chester may be for you.
Chester 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.
The education level of Chester ranks among the highest in the nation. Of the 25-and-older adult population in Chester, 40.58% have at least a bachelor's degree. The typical US community has just 21.84% of its adults holding a bachelor's degree or graduate degree.
The per capita income in Chester in 2022 was $39,687, which is middle income relative to Vermont, and upper middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $158,748 for a family of four. However, Chester contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
The people who call Chester home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Chester residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Important ancestries of people in Chester include English, Irish, German, Scottish, and French.
The most common language spoken in Chester is English. Other important languages spoken here include Italian and French.
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 Chester, the neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
Of note is NeighborhoodScout's research finding that the neighborhood has some of the lowest rates of children living in poverty of any neighborhood in the United States. In a nation where approximately 1 in 4 children are living in poverty, the community truly stands out from the rest in this regard.
In the neighborhood, carpooling is still a popular way to get to and from work. NeighborhoodScout's analysis reveals that 24.9% of commuters carpool here, which is more than in 97.0% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
Each year, fewer and fewer Americans make their living as farmers, foresters, or fishers. But the neighborhood truly stands out among U.S. neighborhoods. According to exclusive NeighborhoodScout analysis, this neighborhood has a greater proportion of farmers, foresters, or fishers than 95.2% of all American neighborhoods. This is truly a unique cultural characteristic of this neighborhood.
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 30.7%, which is higher than 95.0% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Scottish and Canadian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 7.8% of this neighborhood's residents have Scottish ancestry and 2.2% have Canadian ancestry.
is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 7.9% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Italian at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 96.8% of the neighborhoods in America.
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 Chester are middle-income, making it a moderate income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 40.3% of the neighborhoods in America. In addition, 0.0% 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 100.0% 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 neighborhood, 46.6% 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 19.8% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations (17.9%), and 12.1% 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 96.6% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Italian 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 Chester, VT, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as English (27.1%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (18.8%), and residents who report German roots (13.1%), and some of the residents are also of Scottish ancestry (7.8%), along with some French ancestry residents (7.6%), 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 under 15 minutes commuting one-way to work (33.0% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.
Here most residents (62.5%) 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 (24.9%) . In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.