Chester is a very small town located in the state of Vermont. With a population of 2,993 people and just one neighborhood, Chester is the 75th largest community in Vermont.
Chester is neither predominantly blue-collar nor white-collar, instead having a mixed workforce of both blue-collar and white-collar jobs. Overall, Chester is a town of professionals, service providers, and sales and office workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Chester who work in teaching (11.81%), management occupations (8.79%), and office and administrative support (8.47%).
Of important note, Chester is also a town of artists. Chester has more artists, designers and people working in media than 90% of the communities in America. This concentration of artists helps shape Chester’s character.
Telecommuters are a relatively large percentage of the workforce: 13.95% 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.
Because of many things, Chester is a great place for families with children to consider. First of all, many other families with children live here, making Chester a place where both parents and children are more likely to develop social ties with other families, as well as find family-oriented services and community. The town’s good public school district and large population of college-educated adults provide an environment conducive to academic values. With regard to real estate, Chester has a high rate of owner-occupied single family homes, which tends to reflect stability in the local community. Finally, Chester’s overall crime rate ranks among the lowest in the country, making it one of the safest places to raise a family.
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!) Chester 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. Chester has few renters and college students. But the biggest reason it is quieter in Chester than in most places in America, is that there are just simply fewer people living here. If you think trees make good neighbors, Chester may be for you.
As is often the case in a small town, Chester doesn't have a public transportation system that people use for their commute.
The overall education level of Chester citizens is substantially higher than the typical US community, as 33.13% of adults in Chester have at least a bachelor's degree, and the average American community has 21.84%.
The per capita income in Chester in 2022 was $39,892, which is lower middle income relative to Vermont, and upper middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $159,568 for a family of four. However, Chester contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
The people who call Chester home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Chester residents report their race to be White. Important ancestries of people in Chester include English, Irish, German, Italian, and French.
The most common language spoken in Chester is English. Other important languages spoken here include Italian and Greek.
Many things matter about a neighborhood, but the first thing most people notice is the way a neighborhood looks and its particular character. For example, one might notice whether the buildings all date from a certain time period or whether shop signs are in multiple languages. This particular neighborhood in Chester, the neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
Of note is NeighborhoodScout's research finding that the neighborhood has some of the lowest rates of children living in poverty of any neighborhood in the United States. In a nation where approximately 1 in 4 children are living in poverty, the community truly stands out from the rest in this regard.
In addition, the neighborhood stands out within Vermont for its college student friendly environment. NeighborhoodScout's analysis reveals that this neighborhood is home to a number of college students, is relatively walkable, and above average in safety. In combination, this makes it stand out for a good place for college students to consider. Because a number of college students live here, this neighborhood may be close to a college campus and offer certain amenities nearby geared towards the student body. While it's not an environment for everyone, ambitious scholars can enjoy seasonal excitement between semesters and school breaks, and parents can rest easy knowing that the area has an above average safety rating. For each of these reasons, the neighborhood is rated among the top 7.3% of college-friendly places to live in VT.
Vacant homes and apartments are a significant characteristic of this neighborhood. In fact, with 31.0% of the residential real estate vacant, the neighborhood claims the distinction of having a higher vacancy rate than 95.8% of the neighborhoods in America. This can either be because much of the property is seasonally occupied, like in many vacation areas, or that much of the real estate is more permanently abandoned.
Did you know that the neighborhood has more French Canadian and English ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 5.8% of this neighborhood's residents have French Canadian ancestry and 27.8% have English ancestry.
is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 7.9% 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 96.8% 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 Chester are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 69.6% of U.S. neighborhoods. In addition, 0.0% 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 100.0% of America'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 neighborhood, 38.1% 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 26.1% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (19.8%), and 14.0% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 99.2% of households. Some people also speak Italian (7.9%).
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 neighborhood in Chester, VT, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as English (27.8%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (23.8%), and residents who report German roots (13.5%), and some of the residents are also of Italian ancestry (8.0%), along with some French ancestry residents (7.1%), 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 under 15 minutes commuting one-way to work (33.0% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.
Here most residents (67.4%) 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 (14.8%) . In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.