Springfield, MA (Upper Hill / Springfield College)

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 Upper Hill / Springfield College neighborhood in Springfield are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 86.2% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 40.5% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 89.9% of U.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 Upper Hill / Springfield College neighborhood, 37.1% of the working population is employed in executive, management, and professional occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations, with 25.8% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (22.8%), and 14.3% in manufacturing and laborer occupations.

Languages

The most common language spoken in the Upper Hill / Springfield College neighborhood is English, spoken by 81.5% of households. Some people also speak Spanish (14.4%).

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 Upper Hill / Springfield College neighborhood in Springfield, MA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Puerto Rican (22.6%). There are also a number of people of Jamaican ancestry (11.7%), and residents who report Asian roots (2.9%), and some of the residents are also of Haitian ancestry (1.4%), along with some Sub-Saharan African ancestry residents (1.3%), among others. In addition, 11.7% 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 Upper Hill / Springfield College neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (52.4% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.

Here most residents (66.6%) 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 (8.6%) and 7.4% of residents also bicycle 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.