Chicago, IL (Brighton Park Northwest)

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 Brighton Park Northwest neighborhood in Chicago are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 63.4% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 14.0% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 58.0% of U.S. neighborhoods.

The old saying "you are what you eat" is true. But it is also true that you are what you do for a living. The types of occupations your neighbors have shape their character, and together as a group, their collective occupations shape the culture of a place.

In the Brighton Park Northwest neighborhood, 44.5% 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 30.2% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in executive, management, and professional occupations (17.7%), and 7.6% 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 Brighton Park Northwest neighborhood is Spanish, spoken by 73.5% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Chinese, English and Polish.

Ethnicity / Ancestry

Culture is the shared learned behavior of peoples. Undeniably, different ethnicities and ancestries have different cultural traditions, and as a result, neighborhoods with concentrations of residents of one or another ethnicities or ancestries will express those cultures. It is what makes the North End in Boston so fun to visit for the Italian restaurants, bakeries, culture, and charm, and similarly, why people enjoy visiting Chinatown in San Francisco.

In the Brighton Park Northwest neighborhood in Chicago, IL, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Mexican (66.8%). There are also a number of people of Asian ancestry (16.6%), and residents who report South American roots (4.0%), and some of the residents are also of Polish ancestry (1.6%), along with some German ancestry residents (1.2%), among others. In addition, 41.4% of the residents of this neighborhood were born in another country.

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 Brighton Park Northwest neighborhood spend between 30 and 45 minutes commuting one-way to work (55.9% of working residents), which is at or a bit above the average length of a commute across all U.S. neighborhoods.

Here most residents (51.0%) 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 (42.9%) . In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.