This is a small community in a single neighborhood.
As throughout the site, some neighborhood-level data are reserved for subscribers.
What do we mean by a neighborhood?
NeighborhoodScout® uses the official government designation for neighborhoods - the census tract.
Census tracts are small, relatively permanent subdivisions of a county that are defined by the U.S. Census Bureau in conjunction with local authorities all across the country to define real neighborhoods that are bounded to contain areas with homogeneous population characteristics (including economic status, lifestyle, and living conditions). Census tracts usually have 4,000 persons, but can range between 1,500 and 8,000 persons. This is the most fine-grained area for which detailed information is made available from the government, to protect the individual privacy of each of us. Because census tracts are based on population, they vary in size depending on the density of settlement. In urban areas, they are small, and in rural areas they can cover an entire small town or even a few small towns in very rural areas.
Since census tracts are subdivisions of a county, we did a spatial overlay of the census tracts onto city and town boundaries using a geographic information system to properly assign each census tract to its appropriate city or town. Then we named each census tract to the local colloquially recognized neighborhood name for that spot (e.g., Boston, MA (Dorchester). If there was not a name available, we named the census tract by the largest street intersection in the census tract (e.g., Worcester, MA (Lincoln St/Plantation St)
Why we don't use Zip Codes as neighborhoods
Zip codes were developed by the Postal Service for the purpose of delivering mail, but were never intended to define coherent neighborhoods. In addition, Zip Codes can have as many as 10 distinctly different census tracts contained within them. When distinct census tracts are blended together in a single Zip Code, the data reflects their average conditions and often gives a false sense of the area. The result is that potentially great matching neighborhoods can be missed, and erroneous matches can also be produced and delivered to you.
Using census tracts makes great matches possible, and helps people find the areas that are best for them and their families. Because we are committed to providing the highest possible quality and finding the neighborhoods that best meet your criteria, we use census tracts. And, as always, we show you the actual street map of the neighborhood so you know exactly where your best matching neighborhood is located.
What is a Condition Alert?
A condition alert is a condition in the neighborhood that triggers an alert. NeighborhoodScout contains condition alerts to highlight conditions that are extreme, whether good or bad. This helps answer crucial questions about the state of the neighborhood being evaluated, such as:
What are the risks of violent crime here?
Is the risk of home break-ins or other property crimes increasing?
Does real estate here hold its value?
Are the trends in local vacancies or unemployment concerning?
...and dozens more.
Information at a glance that you need to know to invest, appraise or finance a property.
Smithton is a tiny borough located in the state of Pennsylvania. With a population of 337 people and just one neighborhood, Smithton is the 1040th largest community in Pennsylvania. Smithton has a large stock of pre-World War II architecture, making it one of the older and more historic boroughs in the country.
Occupations and Workforce
Because occupations involving physical labor dominate the local economy, Smithton is generally considered to be a blue-collar town. 41.04% of the Smithton workforce is employed in blue-collar occupations, compared to the national average of 27.7%. Overall, Smithton is a borough of sales and office workers, construction workers and builders, and professionals. There are especially a lot of people living in Smithton who work in sales jobs (11.94%), art, media, and design (11.19%), and food service (8.21%).
Of important note, Smithton is also a borough of artists. Smithton has more artists, designers and people working in media than 90% of the communities in America. This concentration of artists helps shape Smithton’s character.
Also of interest is that Smithton has more people living here who work in computers and math than 95% of the places in the US.
Telecommuters are a relatively large percentage of the workforce: 12.21% of people work from home. While this number may seem small overall, as a fraction of the total workforce it is high relative to the nation. 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
The overall crime rate in Smithton is one of the lowest in the US. This makes it one of the safer places to live in the country in terms of crime.
Demographics
The population of Smithton overall has a level of education that is slightly above the US average for all US cities and towns of 21.84%. Of adults 25 and older in Smithton, 22.47% have at least a bachelor's degree.
The per capita income in Smithton in 2022 was $28,930, which is lower middle income relative to Pennsylvania and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $115,720 for a family of four. However, Smithton contains both very wealthy and poor people as well. Smithton also has one of the higher rates of people living in poverty in the nation, with 37.37% of its population below the federal poverty line.
The people who call Smithton home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Smithton residents report their race to be White. Important ancestries of people in Smithton include German, Italian, Irish, English, and Slovak.
The most common language spoken in Smithton is English. Other important languages spoken here include Italian and Serbo-Croatian.
Notable & Unique Neighborhood Characteristics
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 Smithton, the neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
Modes of Transportation
Our research reveals that 90.2% of commuters who live in the neighborhood get to work each day by driving alone in their automobiles, which is a higher proportion than 97.4% of U.S. neighborhoods.
Real Estate
One of the notable things about is that it is one of the quietest neighborhoods in America, according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis and quantitative rating of quietness. When you are here, you will find it to be very quiet. If quiet and peaceful are your cup of tea, you may have found a great place for you.
Diversity
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Slovak and Hungarian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 6.6% of this neighborhood's residents have Slovak ancestry and 4.0% have Hungarian ancestry.
is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 16.8% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Italian at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 99.4% of the neighborhoods in America.
The Neighbors
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 neighborhood in Smithton are middle-income, making it a moderate income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 41.5% of the neighborhoods in America. With 16.6% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 64.0% 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 neighborhood, 31.6% of the working population is employed in executive, management, and professional 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 28.3% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations (27.8%), and 11.9% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 97.4% of households. Some people also speak Italian (16.8%).
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 neighborhood in Smithton, PA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (29.2%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (15.1%), and residents who report Italian roots (11.6%), and some of the residents are also of English ancestry (8.4%), along with some Slovak ancestry residents (6.6%), 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 (35.8% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (90.2%) 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 (5.4%) . In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.
SCOUT’s patented match algorithm identifies the most similar neighborhoods to a subject location, and quantifies the similarity to the subject location. This allows analysts to identify the most similar neighborhoods in a local market area for appraisals, investments, and research.
The algorithm uses 273 neighborhood conditions, identifies the dominant dimensions underlying the conditions and calculates the similarity. This captures the true culture and character of locations, economic conditions, and trends.
The closer to 100% means the locations are nearly identical. 80% is a very good, but not excellent match, and so forth.
