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Foster, RI

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





Overview


Foster is a very small town located in the state of Rhode Island. With a population of 4,468 people and just one neighborhood, Foster is the 37th largest community in Rhode Island.

Housing costs in Foster 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 Rhode Island.

Occupations and Workforce

Foster is neither predominantly blue-collar nor white-collar, instead having a mixed workforce of both blue-collar and white-collar jobs. Overall, Foster is a town of professionals, sales and office workers, and service providers. There are especially a lot of people living in Foster who work in teaching (13.91%), office and administrative support (10.34%), and sales jobs (10.07%).

A relatively large number of people in Foster telecommute to their jobs. Overall, about 11.19% 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

Because of many things, Foster 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, Foster really has some of the features that families look for when choosing a good community to raise children. Is Foster 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 Foster, however, the average commute to work is quite long. On average, people spend 35.77 minutes each day getting to work, which is significantly higher than the national average.

Demographics

The education level of Foster citizens is very high relative to the national average among all cities (21.84%): 35.89% of adults in Foster have a bachelor's degree or even advanced degree.

The per capita income in Foster in 2018 was $37,382, which is lower middle income relative to Rhode Island, and upper middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $149,528 for a family of four.

Foster is a somewhat ethnically-diverse town. The people who call Foster home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Foster residents report their race to be White, followed by Asian. Important ancestries of people in Foster include Irish, English, French, Italian, and German.

The most common language spoken in Foster is English. Other important languages spoken here include Polish and Portuguese.

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

If you're looking for a great spot to raise a family, then look no further than the neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's analysis found that the combination of good quality public schools, above-average safety from crime, and a high rate of home ownership in predominantly single-family homes, help make this neighborhood among the top 13.0% of family-friendly neighborhoods across the state of Rhode Island. In addition, there are a high proportion of other families with school-aged children living here, making it easy for parents and their children to socialize and develop a sense of community support. In addition, families here highly value education, as is reflected by the strength of the local schools, in part due to the educational attainment of the parents here, who vote in support of the public schools.

Diversity

Did you know that the neighborhood has more Belgian and French ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 1.6% of this neighborhood's residents have Belgian ancestry and 13.9% have French ancestry.

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 Foster are upper-middle income, making it an above average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 80.7% of the neighborhoods in America. In addition, 2.8% 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 72.4% of America'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 neighborhood, 38.3% 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 25.3% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations (22.2%), and 14.1% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.

Languages

The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 95.3% of households. Some people also speak Polish (3.2%).

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 Foster, RI, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Irish (20.7%). There are also a number of people of English ancestry (18.0%), and residents who report French roots (13.9%), and some of the residents are also of Italian ancestry (12.6%), along with some German ancestry residents (9.6%), among others.

Getting to Work

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 neighborhood spend between 30 and 45 minutes commuting one-way to work (45.1% of working residents), which is at or a bit above the average length of a commute across all U.S. neighborhoods.

Here most residents (80.4%) 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 (7.0%) . 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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