Rockford, IL (South Sixth Street)

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 South Sixth Street neighborhood in Rockford are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 97.1% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 48.6% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 93.7% 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 South Sixth Street neighborhood, 50.5% of the working population is employed in manufacturing and laborer 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 31.9% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in executive, management, and professional occupations (9.1%), and 7.8% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.

Languages

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 South Sixth Street neighborhood is English, spoken by 61.9% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish, African languages and Italian.

Ethnicity / Ancestry

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 South Sixth Street neighborhood in Rockford, IL, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Mexican (28.9%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (11.2%), and residents who report German roots (11.0%), and some of the residents are also of Sub-Saharan African ancestry (10.8%), along with some Italian ancestry residents (6.6%), among others. In addition, 24.1% of the residents of this neighborhood were born in another country.

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 South Sixth Street neighborhood spend under 15 minutes commuting one-way to work (39.7% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America. However, there is also a significant group of residents (13.5%) who commute over an hour in each direction.

Here most residents (70.7%) 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 (18.0%) . In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.