Penfield is a somewhat small town located in the state of New York. With a population of 19,713 people and four constituent neighborhoods, Penfield is the 95th largest community in New York.

Penfield is a decidedly white-collar town, with fully 88.88% of the workforce employed in white-collar jobs, well above the national average. Overall, Penfield is a town of professionals, sales and office workers, and managers. There are especially a lot of people living in Penfield who work in management occupations (15.79%), office and administrative support jobs (14.33%), and sales jobs (12.24%).

Also of interest is that Penfield has more people living here who work in computers and math than 95% of the places in the US.

In addition, Penfield is home to many people who could be described as "urban sophisticates." Urban sophisticates are people who are both educated and wealthy, and thus tend to be older, richer, and more established than young professionals. "Urban sophisticates" is not just about being educated and well-off financially: it is a point of view and state of mind, one that you might call 'urbaneness.' But such people can and do regularly live in small towns, suburbs and rural areas, as well as in big cities. They read, support the arts and high-end shops, and love travel.

Because of many things, Penfield 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, Penfield really has some of the features that families look for when choosing a good community to raise children. Is Penfield perfect? Of course not, and if you like frenetic night life, 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.

Penfield is a very car-oriented town. This is because most people - 98.5% - drive by car to work every day, and few people choose alternative modes of transportation, such as public transit, cycling, or walking. In general, car-oriented communities have a layout that emphasizes streets, highways, and ease of parking, and sometimes this can be to the detriment of human-scale priorities such as walkability alongside roads, and public spaces. For example, strip malls are something you will find in Penfield.

Being a small town, Penfield does not have a public transit system used by locals to get to and from work.

Penfield Information and Demographics

Do you like to read, write and learn? If you move to Penfield, you'll likely find that many of your neighbors like to as well. Penfield is one of the more educated communities in America, with a full 50.58% of its adults having a college degree or even advanced degree, compared to a national average across all communities of 14.96%.

The per capita income in Penfield in 2000 was $30,008, which is upper middle income relative to New York, and wealthy relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $120,032 for a family of four. However, Penfield contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.

The people who call Penfield home come from a variety of different races and ancestries. The most prevalent race in Penfield is White, followed by Asian. Important ancestries of people in Penfield include Italian, German, Irish, English, and Polish.

The most common language spoken in Penfield is English.