Bear Creek is a tiny borough located in the state of Pennsylvania. With a population of 305 people and just one neighborhood, Bear Creek is the 1060th largest community in Pennsylvania. Much of the housing stock in Bear Creek was built prior to World War II, making it one of the older and more historic boroughs in the country.
Unlike some boroughs where white-collar or blue-collar occupations dominate the local economy, Bear Creek is neither predominantly one nor the other. Instead, it has a mixed workforce of both white- and blue-collar jobs. Overall, Bear Creek is a borough of professionals, sales and office workers, and production and manufacturing workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Bear Creek who work in healthcare (19.20%), sales jobs (16.80%), and office and administrative support (10.00%).
One interesting thing about the economy is that relatively large numbers of people worked from their home: 15.92% 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.
In addition, Bear Creek is home to many people who could be described as "urban sophisticates". Urban sophisticates are educated, wealthy, executives and professionals, who have urbane tastes in books, food, and travel, whether they actually live in a big city, or choose to reside in a small town. In big or medium-sized cities, urban sophisticates tend to frequent art institutions such as opera, symphonies, ballet, live theatre, and museums.
Because of many things, Bear Creek 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, Bear Creek really has some of the features that families look for when choosing a good community to raise children. Is Bear Creek 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.
One downside of living in Bear Creek, however, is that residents on average have to contend with a long commute, spending on average 40.11 minutes every day commuting to work.
As is often the case in a small borough, Bear Creek doesn't have a public transportation system that people use for their commute.
Do you like to read, write and learn? If you move to Bear Creek, you'll likely find that many of your neighbors like to as well. Bear Creek is one of the more educated communities in America, with a full 51.88% of its adults having a college degree or even advanced degree, compared to a national average across all communities of 21.84%.
The per capita income in Bear Creek in 2022 was $56,296, which is wealthy relative to Pennsylvania and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $225,184 for a family of four.
Bear Creek is a somewhat ethnically-diverse borough. The people who call Bear Creek home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Bear Creek residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Bear Creek also has a sizeable Hispanic population (people of Hispanic origin can be of any race). People of Hispanic or Latino origin account for 13.06% of the borough’s residents. Important ancestries of people in Bear Creek include Polish, German, Irish, English, and Italian.
The most common language spoken in Bear Creek is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Slavic languages.
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.
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 44 people per square mile living here, this neighborhood is less crowded than 90.3% of America.
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Polish and Slovak ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 27.0% of this neighborhood's residents have Polish ancestry and 4.0% have Slovak ancestry.
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 Bear Creek are upper-middle income, making it an above average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 60.7% of the neighborhoods in America. 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, 40.1% 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 23.0% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (22.6%), and 14.0% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 90.6% of households. Some people also speak Spanish (2.3%).
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 Bear Creek, PA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Polish (27.0%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (17.1%), and residents who report German roots (15.9%), and some of the residents are also of Italian ancestry (13.2%), along with some English ancestry residents (4.6%), 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 (45.2% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (80.4%) 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 (5.6%) . In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.