Sterling is a very small town located in the state of Connecticut. With a population of 3,623 people and just one neighborhood, Sterling is the 143rd largest community in Connecticut.
Unlike some towns, Sterling isn’t mainly white- or blue-collar. Instead, the most prevalent occupations for people in Sterling are a mix of both white- and blue-collar jobs. Overall, Sterling is a town of sales and office workers, professionals, and production and manufacturing workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Sterling who work in office and administrative support (11.91%), management occupations (11.44%), and sales jobs (9.37%).
Telecommuters are a relatively large percentage of the workforce: 11.37% 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.
Sterling’s overall crime rate ranks among the lowest in the nation, making it a very safe place to live.
It is a fairly quiet town because there are relatively few of those groups of people who have a tendency to be noisy. (Children, for example, often can't help themselves from being noisy, and being parents ourselves, we know!) Sterling has relatively few families with children living at home, and is quieter because of it. Renters and college students, for their own reasons, can also be noisy. Sterling has few renters and college students. But the biggest reason it is quieter in Sterling than in most places in America, is that there are just simply fewer people living here. If you think trees make good neighbors, Sterling may be for you.
One downside of living in Sterling, however, is that residents on average have to contend with a long commute, spending on average 35.82 minutes every day commuting to work.
Sterling is a small town, and as such doesn't have a public transit system that people use to get to and from their jobs every day.
The percentage of people in Sterling with college degrees is quite a bit lower than the national average for cities and towns of 21.84%: just 12.15% of people over 25 have a bachelor's degree or advanced degree.
The per capita income in Sterling in 2022 was $35,739, which is low income relative to Connecticut, and upper middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $142,956 for a family of four. However, Sterling contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
Sterling is a very ethnically-diverse town. The people who call Sterling home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Sterling residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Sterling also has a sizeable Hispanic population (people of Hispanic origin can be of any race). People of Hispanic or Latino origin account for 12.83% of the town’s residents. Important ancestries of people in Sterling include French, Irish, English, Italian, and French Canadian.
The most common language spoken in Sterling is English. Other important languages spoken here include Italian and Spanish.
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.
Did you know that the neighborhood has more French Canadian and French ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 8.5% of this neighborhood's residents have French Canadian ancestry and 14.3% have French ancestry.
is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 12.5% 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 98.7% of the neighborhoods in America.
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 Sterling are upper-middle income, making it an above average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 62.2% of the neighborhoods in America. With 15.9% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 61.8% 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, 33.0% of the working population is employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is executive, management, and professional occupations, with 32.8% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (20.0%), and 13.8% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
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 neighborhood is English, spoken by 93.5% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Italian and Spanish.
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 Sterling, CT, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as French (14.3%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (13.2%), and residents who report English roots (13.1%), and some of the residents are also of Puerto Rican ancestry (12.8%), along with some Italian ancestry residents (9.9%), 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 neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (29.1% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (84.7%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.