Irvington, NJ (First Ward)

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 First Ward neighborhood in Irvington are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 62.9% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 57.5% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 96.2% of U.S. neighborhoods.

A neighborhood is far different if it is dominated by enlisted military personnel rather than people who earn their living by farming. It is also different if most of the neighbors are clerical support or managers. What is wonderful is the sheer diversity of neighborhoods, allowing you to find the type that fits your lifestyle and aspirations.

In the First Ward neighborhood, 29.9% of the working population is employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is manufacturing and laborer occupations, with 29.4% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (26.1%), and 14.5% 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 First Ward neighborhood is English, spoken by 68.4% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish, French 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 First Ward neighborhood in Irvington, NJ, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Puerto Rican (13.9%). There are also a number of people of Sub-Saharan African ancestry (11.4%), and residents who report Haitian roots (10.8%), and some of the residents are also of Jamaican ancestry (8.9%), along with some Polish ancestry residents (1.3%), among others. In addition, 28.3% 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 First Ward neighborhood spend between 30 and 45 minutes commuting one-way to work (32.2% of working residents), which is at or a bit above the average length of a commute across all U.S. neighborhoods.

Here most residents (69.8%) 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 (14.0%) and 7.5% 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.