Philadelphia, PA (Olney West)

How wealthy a neighborhood is, from very wealthy, to middle income, to low income is very formative with regard to the personality and character of a neighborhood. Equally important is the rate of people, particularly children, who live below the federal poverty line. In some wealthy gated communities, the areas immediately surrounding can have high rates of childhood poverty, which indicates other social issues. NeighborhoodScout's analysis reveals both aspects of income and poverty for this neighborhood.

The neighbors in the Olney West neighborhood in Philadelphia are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 66.9% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 20.7% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 71.0% of U.S. neighborhoods.

What we choose to do for a living reflects who we are. Each neighborhood has a different mix of occupations represented, and together these tell you about the neighborhood and help you understand if this neighborhood may fit your lifestyle.

In the Olney West neighborhood, 32.6% 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 28.6% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (28.4%), and 13.7% in government jobs, whether they are in local, state, or federal positions.

Languages

The languages spoken by people in this neighborhood are diverse. These are tabulated as the languages people preferentially speak when they are at home with their families. The most common language spoken in the Olney West neighborhood is English, spoken by 72.4% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Mon-Khmer (the dominant language of Cambodia).

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 Olney West neighborhood in Philadelphia, PA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Dominican (10.5%). There are also a number of people of South American ancestry (9.2%), and residents who report Sub-Saharan African roots (9.1%), and some of the residents are also of Asian ancestry (7.2%), along with some Irish ancestry residents (5.3%), among others. In addition, 26.0% 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 Olney West neighborhood spend between 30 and 45 minutes commuting one-way to work (37.4% of working residents), which is at or a bit above the average length of a commute across all U.S. neighborhoods.

Here most residents (58.1%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In addition, quite a number also ride the bus to get to work (13.3%) and 11.3% 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.