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Sterling, KS

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



Overview

Sterling is a very small city located in the state of Kansas. With a population of 2,309 people and just one neighborhood, Sterling is the 155th largest community in Kansas. Much of the housing stock in Sterling was built prior to World War II, making it one of the older and more historic cities in the country.

Occupations and Workforce

Sterling is neither predominantly blue-collar nor white-collar, instead having a mixed workforce of both blue-collar and white-collar jobs. Overall, Sterling is a city of professionals, sales and office workers, and managers. There are especially a lot of people living in Sterling who work in office and administrative support (15.23%), management occupations (13.08%), and teaching (12.13%).

Of important note, Sterling is also a city of artists. Sterling has more artists, designers and people working in media than 90% of the communities in America. This concentration of artists helps shape Sterling’s character.

Telecommuters are a relatively large percentage of the workforce: 7.87% 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.

Setting & Lifestyle

Because of many things, Sterling is a very good place for families to consider. With an enviable combination of good schools, low crime, college-educated neighbors who tend to support education because of their own experiences, and a high rate of home ownership in predominantly single-family properties, Sterling really has some of the features that families look for when choosing a good community to raise children. Is Sterling perfect? Of course not, and if you like frenetic nightlife, it will be far from your cup of tea. But overall this is a solid community, with many things to recommend it as a family-friendly place to live.

Sterling is a small city, and as such doesn't have a public transit system that people use to get to and from their jobs every day.

Demographics

The education level of Sterling citizens is very high relative to the national average among all cities (21.84%): 39.82% of adults in Sterling have a bachelor's degree or even advanced degree.

The per capita income in Sterling in 2022 was $30,174, which is lower middle income relative to Kansas and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $120,696 for a family of four. However, Sterling contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.

Sterling is a somewhat ethnically-diverse city. The people who call Sterling home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Sterling residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Important ancestries of people in Sterling include German, English, Irish, Dutch, and Scottish.

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

Notable & Unique Neighborhood Characteristics

When you see a neighborhood for the first time, the most important thing is often the way it looks, like its homes and its setting. Some places look the same, but they only reveal their true character after living in them for a while because they contain a unique mix of occupational or cultural groups. This neighborhood is very unique in some important ways, according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive exploration and analysis.

People

One of the really interesting characteristics about the neighborhood is that, according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive research, it is an excellent choice in which to reside for college students. Due to its popularity among college students who already choose to live here, its walkability, and its above average safety from crime, the neighborhood is ideal for prospective or already-enrolled college students. Between semesters and during school breaks, you'll notice that the excitement here fluctuates with the college seasons. Despite the excitement however, parents of college-age children can rest easy knowing that this neighborhood has an above average safety rating. For each of these reasons, the neighborhood is rated among the top 1.4% of college-friendly places to live in the state of Kansas. In addition to being an excellent choice for college students, this neighborhood is also a very good choice for active retirees and families with school-aged children.

In addition, neighborhoodScout's analysis shows that the neighborhood has a greater concentration of residents currently enrolled in college than 97.0% of the neighborhoods in the U.S. With 14.3% of the population here attending college, this is very much a college-focused neighborhood.

Real Estate

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 10 people per square mile living here, this neighborhood is less crowded than 97.1% of America.

The Neighbors

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 Sterling are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 63.8% of U.S. neighborhoods. In addition, 5.6% 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 61.7% 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, 40.3% of the working population is employed in executive, management, and professional occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is manufacturing and laborer occupations, with 22.8% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (21.4%), and 14.1% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.

Languages

The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 97.5% of households.

Ethnicity / Ancestry

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 Sterling, KS, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (31.3%). There are also a number of people of English ancestry (15.7%), and residents who report Irish roots (8.9%), and some of the residents are also of Italian ancestry (3.4%), along with some Dutch ancestry residents (2.9%), 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 under 15 minutes commuting one-way to work (54.1% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.

Here most residents (74.1%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In addition, quite a number also hop out the door and walk to work to get to work (9.9%) and 6.6% of residents also carpool with coworkers, friends, or neighbors for their daily commute. 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

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