Median real estate price in the City Center of Reading is $167,369, which is less expensive than 81.5% of Pennsylvania neighborhoods and 85.8% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
The average rental price in Reading City Center is currently $1,394, based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. Rents here are currently lower in price than 72.7% of Pennsylvania neighborhoods.
Reading City Center is a densely urban neighborhood (based on population density) located in Reading, Pennsylvania.
Real estate in the City Center of Reading, PA is primarily made up of small (studio to two bedroom) to medium sized (three or four bedroom) apartment complexes/high-rise apartments and small apartment buildings. Most of the residential real estate is renter occupied. Many of the residences in the City Center neighborhood are relatively historic, built no later than 1939, and in some cases, quite a bit earlier. A number of residences were also built between 1970 and 1999.
Vacant apartments or homes are a major fact of life in Reading City Center. The current real estate vacancy rate here is 16.5%. This is higher than the rate of vacancies in 82.2% of all U.S. neighborhoods. In addition, most vacant housing here is vacant year round. This can sometimes be the case in neighborhoods dominated by new construction that is not yet occupied. But often neighborhoods with vacancy rates this high are places that can be plagued by a protracted vacancy problem. If you live here, you may find that a number of buildings in your neighborhood are actually empty.
Many things matter about a neighborhood, but the first thing most people notice is the way a neighborhood looks and its particular character. For example, one might notice whether the buildings all date from a certain time period or whether shop signs are in multiple languages. This particular neighborhood in Reading, the City Center neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
The Reading City Center neighborhood stands out for having an average per capita income lower than 98.7% of the neighborhoods in the United States. Also of note, 53.8% of the children in this area live in poverty; an extraordinarily high percentage compared to other neighborhoods in the nation. In a nation where approximately one in four children grows up in poverty, this neighborhood stands out for the depth of the problem manifested here.
97.2% of the real estate in the Reading City Center neighborhood is occupied by renters, which is nearly the highest rate of renter occupancy of any neighborhood in America.
In addition, being a walkable neighborhood can help increase property values for the simple reason that people enjoy it and value it. To put it plainly, despite our love affair with the automobile, American's enjoy taking to the streets, sidewalks, paths, and courtyards of a place to get a coffee, relax, and take in the sights and sounds. And, according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive and first quantitative walkable score index, the Reading City Center neighborhood is one of the most walkable neighborhoods in America.
Furthermore, the Reading City Center neighborhood is very unique in that it has one of the highest proportions of one, two, or no bedroom real estate of any neighborhood in America. Most neighborhoods have a mixture of home or apartment sizes from small to large, but here the concentration of studios and other small living spaces is at near-record heights. With 84.7% of the real estate here of this small size, this most assuredly is a notable feature that makes this neighborhood unique, along with just a handful of other neighborhoods in the U.S. that share this characteristic.
Also of note, if you find historic homes and neighborhoods attractive, you love the details, the history, and the charm, then you are sure to be interested in this neighborhood. With 56.0% of the residential real estate in the Reading City Center neighborhood built no later than 1939, and some built considerably earlier, this neighborhood has a greater concentration of historic residences than 95.6% of all neighborhoods in America. In this regard, this neighborhood truly stands out as special.
It used to be that most Americans lived on the farm, or otherwise made their living from the land, the forests, or the sea. With global trade and an economy increasingly based on providing services to one another, fewer people farm, fish or harvest timber now than at any time in American history. But according to NeighborhoodScout's leading analysis, the Reading City Center neighborhood stands apart from most American neighborhood due to the proportion of its residents still working in these fields. With 6.3% of the workforce so employed, this neighborhood has a greater concentration of such workers than 97.9% of U.S. neighborhoods.
Our research revealed that more commuters here take the bus to work (12.2% ride the bus) than 96.3% of all American neighborhoods. If you like the idea of leaving your car and home and hopping the bus to work, this might be a good neighborhood for you to consider.
Also, in the Reading City Center neighborhood, walking to work is a real option for many. In fact, NeighborhoodScout's exclusive research reveals walking to and from work is the chosen way to commute for 11.5% of residents here. This is a higher proportion of walking commuters than we found in 95.8% of American neighborhoods. Get ready to put on your walking shoes if you move here!
We Americans love our cars. Not only are they a necessity for most Americans due to the shape of our neighborhoods and the distances between where we live, work, shop, and go to school, but we also fancy them. As a result, most households in America have one, two, or three cars. But NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis shows that the Reading City Center neighborhood has a highly unusual pattern of car ownership. 20.4% of the households in this neighborhood don't own a car at all. This is more carless households than NeighborhoodScout found in 95.3% of U.S. neighborhoods.
Did you know that the Reading City Center neighborhood has more Puerto Rican and Haitian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 44.4% of this neighborhood's residents have Puerto Rican ancestry and 5.1% have Haitian ancestry.
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 City Center 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 98.7% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 53.8% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 95.4% of U.S. neighborhoods.
What we choose to do for a living reflects who we are. Each neighborhood has a different mix of occupations represented, and together these tell you about the neighborhood and help you understand if this neighborhood may fit your lifestyle.
In the Reading City Center neighborhood, 35.3% 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 26.0% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (18.8%), and 13.7% 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 Reading City Center neighborhood is English, spoken by 53.9% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Italian.
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 City Center neighborhood in Reading, PA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Puerto Rican (44.4%). There are also a number of people of Mexican ancestry (8.5%), and residents who report Dominican roots (5.9%), and some of the residents are also of Haitian ancestry (5.1%), along with some Polish ancestry residents (4.7%), among others. In addition, 10.2% 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 Reading City Center neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (40.1% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
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 (13.5%) and 12.2% 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.
