Prospect Park is a somewhat small borough located in the state of New Jersey. With a population of 6,245 people and just one neighborhood, Prospect Park is the 272nd largest community in New Jersey.
Because occupations involving physical labor dominate the local economy, Prospect Park is generally considered to be a blue-collar town. 36.70% of the Prospect Park workforce is employed in blue-collar occupations, compared to the national average of 27.7%. Overall, Prospect Park is a borough of sales and office workers, professionals, and service providers. There are especially a lot of people living in Prospect Park who work in office and administrative support (16.51%), sales jobs (8.45%), and healthcare (6.95%).
Despite the fact that it is a small borough, Prospect Park has quite a few people who take public transportation – mostly the bus - for their daily commute to work. This helps to fill a real need in the borough for affordable transportation.
The citizens of Prospect Park are slightly better educated than the national average of 21.84% for all cities and towns, with 23.07% of adults in Prospect Park having a bachelor's degree or advanced degree.
The per capita income in Prospect Park in 2022 was $25,501, which is low income relative to New Jersey, and lower middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $102,004 for a family of four. However, Prospect Park contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
Prospect Park is an extremely ethnically-diverse borough. The people who call Prospect Park home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. People of Hispanic or Latino origin are the most prevalent group in Prospect Park, accounting for 55.99% of the borough’s residents (people of Hispanic or Latino origin can be of any race). The greatest number of Prospect Park residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Important ancestries of people in Prospect Park include Dutch, Italian, Czech, German, and Haitian.
Foreign born people are also an important part of Prospect Park's cultural character, accounting for 38.02% of the borough’s population.
The most common language spoken in Prospect Park is Spanish. Other important languages spoken here include English and Other Indo-European.
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 Prospect Park, the neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
Corner bodegas, stores on the first floor and apartments above, former grand Victorian residences converted into apartments, three-deckers built shoulder-to-shoulder, duplexes. Such building types define the real estate of neighborhoods dominated by small 2, 3, and 4 unit apartment buildings. Many are in older core neighborhoods of Eastern and Midwestern cities, or historic town centers in their hinterlands. If you wax romantic about the look and feel of such neighborhoods, with fresh pizza, falafel and an independent florist at the corner, then you might find the neighborhood worth a close look. This neighborhood is an absolutely outstanding example of the dominance of small 2, 3, and 4 unit apartment buildings compared to neighborhoods across the nation, as they make up a substantial portion of this neighborhood's real estate stock. In fact, no less than 71.6% of the real estate here is made up of such dwellings, which is higher than 99.8% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
With a nice mix of college students, safety from crime, and decent walkability, the neighborhood rates highly as a college student friendly place to live, and one that college students and their parents may want to consider. NeighborhoodScout's analysis shows that it rates more highly for a good place for college students to live than 85.7% of the neighborhoods in NJ. This often also means that the area has certain amenities and services geared towards college students, from undergraduates to graduate students.
Did you know that the neighborhood has more South American and Dominican ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 24.2% of this neighborhood's residents have South American ancestry and 14.2% have Dominican ancestry.
is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 2.3% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Arabic at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 95.3% 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 Prospect Park are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 74.3% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 22.9% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 72.9% 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, 36.3% of the working population is employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations, with 23.1% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in executive, management, and professional occupations (22.3%), and 17.9% in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants.
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 Spanish, spoken by 50.6% of households. Other important languages spoken here include English and Arabic.
Boston's Beacon Hill blue-blood streets, Brooklyn's Orthodox Jewish enclaves, Los Angeles' Persian neighborhoods. Each has its own culture derived primarily from the ancestries and culture of the residents who call these neighborhoods home. Likewise, each neighborhood in America has its own culture – some more unique than others – based on lifestyle, occupations, the types of households – and importantly – on the ethnicities and ancestries of the people who live in the neighborhood. Understanding where people came from, who their grandparents or great-grandparents were, can help you understand how a neighborhood is today.
In the neighborhood in Prospect Park, NJ, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as South American (24.2%). There are also a number of people of Dominican ancestry (14.2%), and residents who report Dutch roots (6.0%), and some of the residents are also of Italian ancestry (5.8%), along with some Puerto Rican ancestry residents (5.2%), among others. In addition, 38.0% 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 neighborhood spend between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (45.3% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (72.9%) 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 (20.9%) . In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.