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.
Van Voorhis is a tiny town located in the state of Pennsylvania. With a population of 138 people and just one neighborhood, Van Voorhis is the 1114th largest community in Pennsylvania. Van Voorhis has a large stock of pre-World War II architecture, making it one of the older and more historic towns in the country.
Occupations and Workforce
Van Voorhis is neither predominantly blue-collar nor white-collar, instead having a mixed workforce of both blue-collar and white-collar jobs. Overall, Van Voorhis is a town of sales and office workers, professionals, and transportation and shipping workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Van Voorhis who work in office and administrative support (59.62%), the sciences (23.08%), and sales jobs (0.00%).
And if you like science, one thing you'll find is that Van Voorhis has lots of scientists living in town - whether they be life scientists, physical scientists (like astronomers), or social scientists (like geographers!). So, if you're scientific-minded, you might like it here too.
Telecommuters are a relatively large percentage of the workforce: 17.31% of people work from home. While this number may seem small overall, as a fraction of the total workforce it is high relative to the nation. 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
It is a fairly quiet town because there are relatively few of those groups of people who have a tendency to be noisy. (Children, for example, often can't help themselves from being noisy, and being parents ourselves, we know!) Van Voorhis has relatively few families with children living at home, and is quieter because of it. Renters and college students, for their own reasons, can also be noisy. Van Voorhis has few renters and college students. But the biggest reason it is quieter in Van Voorhis than in most places in America, is that there are just simply fewer people living here. If you think trees make good neighbors, Van Voorhis may be for you.
In Van Voorhis, however, the average commute to work is quite long. On average, people spend 30.87 minutes each day getting to work, which is significantly higher than the national average.
Van Voorhis is a small town, and as such doesn't have a public transit system that people use to get to and from their jobs every day.
Demographics
The rate of college-level education in Van Voorhis is quite a bit lower than the national average among all cities of 21.84%: just 10.14% of people here over 25 have a bachelor's degree or an advanced degree.
The per capita income in Van Voorhis in 2022 was $29,115, which is lower middle income relative to Pennsylvania and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $116,460 for a family of four. However, Van Voorhis contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
The people who call Van Voorhis home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Van Voorhis residents report their race to be White. Important ancestries of people in Van Voorhis include Polish, Czechoslovakian, Italian, Irish, and Slovak.
The most common language spoken in Van Voorhis is English. Other important languages spoken here include Polish and German/Yiddish.
Notable & Unique Neighborhood Characteristics
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.
Real Estate
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.
Diversity
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Czechoslovakian and Slovak ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 3.7% of this neighborhood's residents have Czechoslovakian ancestry and 4.2% have Slovak ancestry.
is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 18.4% 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 99.6% of the neighborhoods in America.
The Neighbors
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 neighborhood in Van Voorhis are middle-income, making it a moderate income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 40.2% of the neighborhoods in America. With 10.5% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 50.4% of U.S. neighborhoods.
A neighborhood is far different if it is dominated by enlisted military personnel rather than people who earn their living by farming. It is also different if most of the neighbors are clerical support or managers. What is wonderful is the sheer diversity of neighborhoods, allowing you to find the type that fits your lifestyle and aspirations.
In the neighborhood, 38.4% 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 30.3% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (20.2%), and 11.1% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 99.3% of households. Some people also speak Italian (18.4%).
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 Van Voorhis, PA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Italian (24.6%). There are also a number of people of Polish ancestry (16.3%), and residents who report German roots (13.3%), and some of the residents are also of Irish ancestry (13.1%), along with some English ancestry residents (11.4%), among others.
Getting to Work
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 (30.8% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (78.9%) 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 (5.2%) . 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.
