This is a small community in a single neighborhood.
As throughout the site, some neighborhood-level data are reserved for subscribers.
What do we mean by a neighborhood?
NeighborhoodScout® uses the official government designation for neighborhoods - the census tract.
Census tracts are small, relatively permanent subdivisions of a county that are defined by the U.S. Census Bureau in conjunction with local authorities all across the country to define real neighborhoods that are bounded to contain areas with homogeneous population characteristics (including economic status, lifestyle, and living conditions). Census tracts usually have 4,000 persons, but can range between 1,500 and 8,000 persons. This is the most fine-grained area for which detailed information is made available from the government, to protect the individual privacy of each of us. Because census tracts are based on population, they vary in size depending on the density of settlement. In urban areas, they are small, and in rural areas they can cover an entire small town or even a few small towns in very rural areas.
Since census tracts are subdivisions of a county, we did a spatial overlay of the census tracts onto city and town boundaries using a geographic information system to properly assign each census tract to its appropriate city or town. Then we named each census tract to the local colloquially recognized neighborhood name for that spot (e.g., Boston, MA (Dorchester). If there was not a name available, we named the census tract by the largest street intersection in the census tract (e.g., Worcester, MA (Lincoln St/Plantation St)
Why we don't use Zip Codes as neighborhoods
Zip codes were developed by the Postal Service for the purpose of delivering mail, but were never intended to define coherent neighborhoods. In addition, Zip Codes can have as many as 10 distinctly different census tracts contained within them. When distinct census tracts are blended together in a single Zip Code, the data reflects their average conditions and often gives a false sense of the area. The result is that potentially great matching neighborhoods can be missed, and erroneous matches can also be produced and delivered to you.
Using census tracts makes great matches possible, and helps people find the areas that are best for them and their families. Because we are committed to providing the highest possible quality and finding the neighborhoods that best meet your criteria, we use census tracts. And, as always, we show you the actual street map of the neighborhood so you know exactly where your best matching neighborhood is located.
What is a Condition Alert?
A condition alert is a condition in the neighborhood that triggers an alert. NeighborhoodScout contains condition alerts to highlight conditions that are extreme, whether good or bad. This helps answer crucial questions about the state of the neighborhood being evaluated, such as:
What are the risks of violent crime here?
Is the risk of home break-ins or other property crimes increasing?
Does real estate here hold its value?
Are the trends in local vacancies or unemployment concerning?
...and dozens more.
Information at a glance that you need to know to invest, appraise or finance a property.
Avoca is a very small borough located in the state of Pennsylvania. With a population of 2,519 people and just one neighborhood, Avoca is the 573rd largest community in Pennsylvania. Avoca has an unusually large stock of pre-World War II architecture, making it one of the older and more historic boroughs.
Occupations and Workforce
Unlike some boroughs where white-collar or blue-collar occupations dominate the local economy, Avoca is neither predominantly one nor the other. Instead, it has a mixed workforce of both white- and blue-collar jobs. Overall, Avoca is a borough of sales and office workers, service providers, and professionals. There are especially a lot of people living in Avoca who work in office and administrative support (13.36%), sales jobs (10.70%), and healthcare (9.34%).
One interesting thing about the economy is that relatively large numbers of people worked from their home: 7.27% 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.
Setting & Lifestyle
Demographics
The citizens of Avoca are slightly less educated than the national average of 21.84% for the average city or town: 13.55% of adults in Avoca have a bachelor's degree or advanced degree
The per capita income in Avoca in 2022 was $38,763, which is upper middle income relative to Pennsylvania and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $155,052 for a family of four.
The people who call Avoca home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Avoca residents report their race to be White. Important ancestries of people in Avoca include Polish, Italian, Irish, German, and English.
The most common language spoken in Avoca is English. Other important languages spoken here include Polish and Russian.
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.
Modes of Transportation
If you like to ride a ferry to work, this neighborhood may be for you. NeighborhoodScout's research revealed that 3.1% of the neighborhood's commuters ride a ferry to and from work each day, which is more than we found in 99.7% of America's neighborhoods.
Real Estate
If you find historic homes and neighborhoods attractive, you love the details, the history, and the charm, then you are sure to be interested in this neighborhood. With 55.9% of the residential real estate in the neighborhood built no later than 1939, and some built considerably earlier, this neighborhood has a greater concentration of historic residences than 95.4% of all neighborhoods in America. In this regard, this neighborhood truly stands out as special.
Diversity
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Polish and Lithuanian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 30.1% of this neighborhood's residents have Polish ancestry and 4.0% have Lithuanian ancestry.
is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 30.0% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Polish at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 100.0% of the neighborhoods in 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 Avoca are middle-income, making it a moderate income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 41.8% of the neighborhoods in America. In addition, 9.3% 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 52.5% 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, 30.2% of the working population is employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is manufacturing and laborer occupations, with 28.4% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in executive, management, and professional occupations (24.4%), and 17.0% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 98.9% of households. Some people also speak Polish (30.0%).
Ethnicity / Ancestry
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 Avoca, PA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Polish (30.1%). There are also a number of people of Italian ancestry (23.6%), and residents who report Irish roots (23.5%), and some of the residents are also of German ancestry (15.0%), along with some English ancestry residents (9.2%), 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 between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (39.7% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (79.0%) 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 (8.6%) . In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.
SCOUT’s patented match algorithm identifies the most similar neighborhoods to a subject location, and quantifies the similarity to the subject location. This allows analysts to identify the most similar neighborhoods in a local market area for appraisals, investments, and research.
The algorithm uses 273 neighborhood conditions, identifies the dominant dimensions underlying the conditions and calculates the similarity. This captures the true culture and character of locations, economic conditions, and trends.
The closer to 100% means the locations are nearly identical. 80% is a very good, but not excellent match, and so forth.
