Reading, PA (Southwest Reading)

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 Southwest Reading neighborhood in Reading are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 99.0% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 74.8% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 99.0% 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 Southwest Reading neighborhood, 37.1% of the working population is employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is manufacturing and laborer occupations, with 25.7% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (20.2%), and 12.9% in executive, management, and professional 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 Southwest Reading neighborhood is English, spoken by 54.6% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and African languages.

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 Southwest Reading neighborhood in Reading, PA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Puerto Rican (34.3%). There are also a number of people of German ancestry (19.1%), and residents who report Dutch roots (14.6%), and some of the residents are also of South American ancestry (11.4%), along with some Dominican ancestry residents (10.9%), among others. In addition, 13.3% 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 Southwest Reading neighborhood spend under 15 minutes commuting one-way to work (43.8% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.

Here most residents (57.8%) 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%) and 14.6% of residents also ride the bus 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.