Allentown, PA (Muhlenberg College / West Park)

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 Muhlenberg College / West Park neighborhood in Allentown are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 88.2% of U.S. neighborhoods. In addition, 5.8% 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 61.4% of America'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 Muhlenberg College / West Park neighborhood, 32.6% 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 executive, management, and professional occupations, with 29.7% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (22.4%), and 15.3% in manufacturing and laborer occupations.

Languages

The most common language spoken in the Muhlenberg College / West Park neighborhood is English, spoken by 85.8% of households. Some people also speak Spanish (9.6%).

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 Muhlenberg College / West Park neighborhood in Allentown, PA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (9.6%). There are also a number of people of Italian ancestry (7.8%), and residents who report Irish roots (7.0%), and some of the residents are also of Dominican ancestry (7.0%), along with some Asian ancestry residents (4.0%), among others.

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 Muhlenberg College / West Park neighborhood spend under 15 minutes commuting one-way to work (52.9% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.

Here most residents (39.9%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In addition, quite a number also hop out the door and walk to work to get to work (28.4%) and 8.3% of residents also carpool with coworkers, friends, or neighbors 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.