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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

Sterling is a decidedly white-collar town, with fully 85.09% of the workforce employed in white-collar jobs, well above the national average. 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 (18.10%), business and financial occupations (11.24%), and teaching (10.09%).

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.

A relatively large number of people in Sterling telecommute to their jobs. Overall, about 10.00% of the workforce works from home. While this may seem like a small number, as a fraction of the total workforce it ranks among the highest in the country. 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.

Setting & Lifestyle

In addition, Sterling 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, 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.

In Sterling, a lot of people use the train to get to work every day though Sterling is a relatively small town. Those that ride the train are primarily traveling out of town to good jobs in other cities.

Demographics

The citizens of Sterling are among the most well-educated in the nation: 49.71% of adults in Sterling have a bachelor's degree or even advanced degree, whereas the average US city has 21.84% holding at least a bachelor's degree.

The per capita income in Sterling in 2018 was $69,244, which is upper middle income relative to Massachusetts, and wealthy relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $276,976 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

When you see a neighborhood for the first time, the most important thing is often the way it looks, like its homes and its setting. Some places look the same, but they only reveal their true character after living in them for a while because they contain a unique mix of occupational or cultural groups. This neighborhood is very unique in some important ways, according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive exploration and analysis.

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.

In addition, a majority of the adults in the neighborhood are wealthy and educated executives. They own stately homes that tend to maintain high real estate appreciation rates. Their upper-level careers keep them busy, but allow them to live comfortably. If you're an executive and want to keep similar company, consider settling in this neighborhood, rated as an executive lifestyle "best choice" neighborhood for Massachusetts by NeighborhoodScout's analysis, which rated it as better for executive lifestyles than 96.0% of the neighborhoods in Massachusetts. In addition to being an excellent choice for highly educated executives, this neighborhood is also a very good choice for urban sophisticates, active retirees and families with school-aged children.

Diversity

Did you know that the neighborhood has more French Canadian and Portuguese ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 7.5% of this neighborhood's residents have French Canadian ancestry and 5.5% have Portuguese 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.

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 89.6% 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.

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 neighborhood, 61.5% 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 14.4% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (12.6%), and 11.1% 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 96.3% 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 (27.6%). There are also a number of people of Italian ancestry (15.8%), and residents who report English roots (15.7%), and some of the residents are also of French ancestry (9.3%), along with some German ancestry residents (8.5%), 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 (38.1% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.

Here most residents (80.0%) 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 (5.1%) . In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.


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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:
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