Plainfield, NJ (Putnam Watchung Historic District)

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 Putnam Watchung Historic District neighborhood in Plainfield are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 61.0% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 19.5% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 68.1% 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 Putnam Watchung Historic District neighborhood, 34.0% of the working population is employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants, with 28.6% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in executive, management, and professional occupations (24.0%), and 13.4% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.

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 Putnam Watchung Historic District neighborhood is Spanish, spoken by 52.0% of households. Other important languages spoken here include English, African languages and Italian.

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 Putnam Watchung Historic District neighborhood in Plainfield, NJ, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as South American (13.6%). There are also a number of people of Dominican ancestry (8.0%), and residents who report Sub-Saharan African roots (5.1%), and some of the residents are also of Haitian ancestry (3.5%), along with some Mexican ancestry residents (3.5%), among others. In addition, 39.9% 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 Putnam Watchung Historic District neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (42.6% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.

Here most residents (68.6%) 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 (18.2%) . In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.