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Sterling, MA

This is a small community in a single neighborhood. As throughout the site, some neighborhood-level data are reserved for subscribers.





Overview


Sterling is a somewhat small town located in the state of Massachusetts. With a population of 8,139 people and just one neighborhood, Sterling is the 208th largest community in Massachusetts.

Housing costs in Sterling are among some of the highest in the nation, although real estate prices here don't compare to real estate prices in the most expensive communities in Massachusetts.

Occupations and Workforce

Unlike some towns where white-collar or blue-collar occupations dominate the local economy, Sterling is neither predominantly one nor the other. Instead, it has a mixed workforce of both white- and blue-collar jobs. Overall, Sterling is a town of professionals, managers, and sales and office workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Sterling who work in management occupations (17.98%), teaching (11.58%), and business and financial occupations (11.17%).

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

Setting & Lifestyle

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

Despite being a small town, Sterling has a lot of people using the train to get to and from work every day. Most of these people on the train are using it to get to good jobs in other cities.

Demographics

Do you like to read, write and learn? If you move to Sterling, you'll likely find that many of your neighbors like to as well. Sterling is one of the more educated communities in America, with a full 52.20% of its adults having a college degree or even advanced degree, compared to a national average across all communities of 21.84%.

The per capita income in Sterling in 2018 was $59,851, which is upper middle income relative to Massachusetts, and wealthy relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $239,404 for a family of four.

The people who call Sterling home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Sterling residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Important ancestries of people in Sterling include Irish, Italian, English, French, and German.

The most common language spoken in Sterling is English. Other important languages spoken here include Polish and French Creole.

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.

People

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.

Diversity

Did you know that the neighborhood has more French Canadian and Irish ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 7.8% of this neighborhood's residents have French Canadian ancestry and 28.4% have Irish ancestry.

is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 9.1% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Polish at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 97.7% of the neighborhoods in America.

Migration / Stability

Do you like to be surrounded by people from all over the country or world, with different perspectives and life experiences? Or do you instead prefer to be in a neighborhood where most residents have lived there for a long time, creating a sense of cohesiveness? NeighborhoodScout's analysis reveals that this neighborhood stands out among American neighborhoods for the uniqueness of the mobility of its residents. More residents of the neighborhood live here today that also were living in this same neighborhood five years ago than is found in 95.7% of U.S. neighborhoods. This neighborhood is really made up of people who know each other, don't move often, and have lived here in this very neighborhood for quite a while.

The Neighbors

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 Sterling are wealthy, making it among the 15% highest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 89.1% of the neighborhoods in America. 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.

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, 63.3% 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 15.7% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (12.5%), and 8.5% in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants.

Languages

The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 96.6% of households. Some people also speak Polish (9.1%).

Ethnicity / Ancestry

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 Sterling, MA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Irish (28.4%). There are also a number of people of Italian ancestry (18.3%), and residents who report English roots (13.3%), and some of the residents are also of French ancestry (9.1%), along with some German ancestry residents (8.2%), 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 (39.4% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.

Here most residents (82.9%) 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 (5.3%) and 5.2% of residents also take the train for their daily commute. In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.


Real Estate includes:
Average Home Values
Rental Market
Housing Market Details
Neighborhood Setting
Economics & Demographics include:
Lifestyle & Special Character
Household Types
Commute To Work
Migration & Mobility
Race & Ethnic Diversity
Employment Industries & Occupations
Income & Unemployment Rate
Higher Education Attainment
Crime includes:
Neighborhood Crime Index
Crimes Per Square Mile
Property Crime Comparison
Violent Crime Comparison
Schools include:
School Ratings
Schools In District
Public School Test Scores
School District Enrollment
Educational Expenditures

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