Downsville is a tiny town located in the state of New York. With a population of 474 people and just one neighborhood, Downsville is the 894th largest community in New York. Downsville has a large stock of pre-World War II architecture, making it one of the older and more historic towns in the country.
Downsville is a decidedly white-collar town, with fully 87.02% of the workforce employed in white-collar jobs, well above the national average. Overall, Downsville is a town of service providers, managers, and professionals. There are especially a lot of people living in Downsville who work in management occupations (25.95%), maintenance occupations (21.37%), and food service (12.21%).
Of important note, Downsville is also a town of artists. Downsville has more artists, designers and people working in media than 90% of the communities in America. This concentration of artists helps shape Downsville’s character.
The town is relatively quiet, having a combination of lower population density and few of those groups of people who have a tendency to be noisy. For example, Downsville has relatively fewer families with younger children, and/or college students. Combined, this makes Downsville a pretty quiet place to live overall. If you like quiet, you will probably enjoy it here.
Compared to the rest of the country, citizens of Downsville spend much less time in their cars: on average, their commute to work is only 15.17 minutes. This also means that noise and pollution levels in the town are less than they would otherwise be.
As is often the case in a small town, Downsville doesn't have a public transportation system that people use for their commute.
Downsville ranks among the bottom of the nation in terms of college education compared to other cities and towns: only 5.86% of people over 25 have a college degree.
The per capita income in Downsville in 2022 was $26,272, which is low income relative to New York, and lower middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $105,088 for a family of four. However, Downsville contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
The people who call Downsville home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Downsville residents report their race to be White. Important ancestries of people in Downsville include German, Italian, Irish, English, and Scottish.
The most common language spoken in Downsville is English. Other important languages spoken here include Italian and Other Indo-European.
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.
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 52.6%, which is higher than 98.9% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
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 13 people per square mile living here, this neighborhood is less crowded than 96.4% of America. One of the notable things about is that it is one of the quietest neighborhoods in America, according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis and quantitative rating of quietness. When you are here, you will find it to be very quiet. If quiet and peaceful are your cup of tea, you may have found a great place for you.
Regardless of the means by which residents commute, this neighborhood has a length of commute that is notable. Long commutes can be brutal. They take time, money, and energy, leaving less of you for yourself and your family. The residents of the neighborhood unfortunately have the distinction of having, on average, a longer commute than most any neighborhood in America. 14.5% of commuters here travel more than one hour just one-way to work. That is more than two hours per day. This percentage with two-hour + round-trip commutes is higher than NeighborhoodScout found in 98.4% of all neighborhoods in America.
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Yugoslav ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 0.5% of this neighborhood's residents have Yugoslav ancestry.
is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 15.3% 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 99.2% of the neighborhoods in America.
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 Downsville are middle-income, making it a moderate income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 42.7% of the neighborhoods in America. With 14.2% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 58.6% 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 neighborhood, 31.9% of the working population is employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is executive, management, and professional occupations, with 31.7% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (26.7%), and 11.1% in government jobs, whether they are in local, state, or federal positions.
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 95.5% of households. Some people also speak Italian (15.3%).
Boston's Beacon Hill blue-blood streets, Brooklyn's Orthodox Jewish enclaves, Los Angeles' Persian neighborhoods. Each has its own culture derived primarily from the ancestries and culture of the residents who call these neighborhoods home. Likewise, each neighborhood in America has its own culture – some more unique than others – based on lifestyle, occupations, the types of households – and importantly – on the ethnicities and ancestries of the people who live in the neighborhood. Understanding where people came from, who their grandparents or great-grandparents were, can help you understand how a neighborhood is today.
In the neighborhood in Downsville, NY, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (24.4%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (18.9%), and residents who report English roots (10.9%), and some of the residents are also of Italian ancestry (10.6%), along with some Dutch ancestry residents (3.4%), among others.
How you get to work – car, bus, train or other means – and how much of your day it takes to do so is a large quality of life and financial issue. Especially with gasoline prices rising and expected to continue doing so, the length and means of one's commute can be a financial burden. Some neighborhoods are physically located so that many residents have to drive in their own car, others are set up so many walk to work, or can take a train, bus, or bike. The greatest number of commuters in neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (28.7% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans. However, there is also a significant group of residents (14.5%) who commute over an hour in each direction.
Here most residents (76.8%) 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 (16.3%) . In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.