This is a small community in a single neighborhood.
As throughout the site, some neighborhood-level data are reserved for subscribers.
What do we mean by a neighborhood?
NeighborhoodScout® uses the official government designation for neighborhoods - the census tract.
Census tracts are small, relatively permanent subdivisions of a county that are defined by the U.S. Census Bureau in conjunction with local authorities all across the country to define real neighborhoods that are bounded to contain areas with homogeneous population characteristics (including economic status, lifestyle, and living conditions). Census tracts usually have 4,000 persons, but can range between 1,500 and 8,000 persons. This is the most fine-grained area for which detailed information is made available from the government, to protect the individual privacy of each of us. Because census tracts are based on population, they vary in size depending on the density of settlement. In urban areas, they are small, and in rural areas they can cover an entire small town or even a few small towns in very rural areas.
Since census tracts are subdivisions of a county, we did a spatial overlay of the census tracts onto city and town boundaries using a geographic information system to properly assign each census tract to its appropriate city or town. Then we named each census tract to the local colloquially recognized neighborhood name for that spot (e.g., Boston, MA (Dorchester). If there was not a name available, we named the census tract by the largest street intersection in the census tract (e.g., Worcester, MA (Lincoln St/Plantation St)
Why we don't use Zip Codes as neighborhoods
Zip codes were developed by the Postal Service for the purpose of delivering mail, but were never intended to define coherent neighborhoods. In addition, Zip Codes can have as many as 10 distinctly different census tracts contained within them. When distinct census tracts are blended together in a single Zip Code, the data reflects their average conditions and often gives a false sense of the area. The result is that potentially great matching neighborhoods can be missed, and erroneous matches can also be produced and delivered to you.
Using census tracts makes great matches possible, and helps people find the areas that are best for them and their families. Because we are committed to providing the highest possible quality and finding the neighborhoods that best meet your criteria, we use census tracts. And, as always, we show you the actual street map of the neighborhood so you know exactly where your best matching neighborhood is located.
What is a Condition Alert?
A condition alert is a condition in the neighborhood that triggers an alert. NeighborhoodScout contains condition alerts to highlight conditions that are extreme, whether good or bad. This helps answer crucial questions about the state of the neighborhood being evaluated, such as:
What are the risks of violent crime here?
Is the risk of home break-ins or other property crimes increasing?
Does real estate here hold its value?
Are the trends in local vacancies or unemployment concerning?
...and dozens more.
Information at a glance that you need to know to invest, appraise or finance a property.
Harmonsburg is a tiny town located in the state of Pennsylvania. With a population of 309 people and just one neighborhood, Harmonsburg is the 1054th largest community in Pennsylvania. Much of the housing stock in Harmonsburg was built prior to World War II, making it one of the older and more historic towns in the country.
Occupations and Workforce
Unlike some towns where white-collar or blue-collar occupations dominate the local economy, Harmonsburg is neither predominantly one nor the other. Instead, it has a mixed workforce of both white- and blue-collar jobs. Overall, Harmonsburg is a town of sales and office workers, production and manufacturing workers, and service providers. There are especially a lot of people living in Harmonsburg who work in office and administrative support (33.33%), sales jobs (25.00%), and food service (16.67%).
Setting & Lifestyle
Harmonsburg is a good choice for families with children because of several factors. Many other families with children live here, making it a place where both parents and children are more likely to develop social ties with other families. The town’s good public school district and large population of college-educated adults provide an environment conducive to academic success. Many people own their own single-family homes, providing areas for children to play and stability in the community. Finally, Harmonsburg’s overall crime rate is lower than average for the country.
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!) Harmonsburg 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. Harmonsburg has few renters and college students. But the biggest reason it is quieter in Harmonsburg than in most places in America, is that there are just simply fewer people living here. If you think trees make good neighbors, Harmonsburg may be for you.
Harmonsburg is very much a car-oriented town. This is because the population of Harmonsburg isn't large enough or dense enough to support an extensive public transit system. It has a lot of rural roads, and the distance between houses can be quite large, which together tends to discourage walking and bicycling to work. 100.00% of residents commute to work in their own car (and the drive is typically to a job out of town). People also tend to drive out of town for other services as well, such as shopping, doctors appointments, and more.
Being a small town, Harmonsburg does not have a public transit system used by locals to get to and from work.
Demographics
The citizens of Harmonsburg are among the most well-educated in the nation: 40.00% of adults in Harmonsburg have a bachelor's degree or even advanced degree, whereas the average US city has 21.84% holding at least a bachelor's degree.
The per capita income in Harmonsburg in 2022 was $25,991, which is low income relative to Pennsylvania, and lower middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $103,964 for a family of four. However, Harmonsburg contains both very wealthy and poor people as well. Harmonsburg also has one of the higher rates of people living in poverty in the nation, with 49.37% of its population below the federal poverty line.
Harmonsburg is an extremely ethnically-diverse town. The people who call Harmonsburg home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Harmonsburg residents report their race to be White, followed by Asian. Important ancestries of people in Harmonsburg include Irish, English, French, Polish, and German.
Harmonsburg also has a high percentage of its population that was born in another country: 20.25%.
The most common language spoken in Harmonsburg is English. Other important languages spoken here include Italian and Polish.
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.
Modes of Transportation
While most Americans do drive to work alone each day, the neighborhood stands out by having 89.8% of commuters doing so, which is a higher proportion of people driving alone to work than NeighborhoodScout found in 97.0% of all American neighborhoods.
Diversity
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Slovak and Irish ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 1.5% of this neighborhood's residents have Slovak ancestry and 22.6% have Irish ancestry.
is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 11.2% 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 98.3% of the neighborhoods in America.
The Neighbors
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 Harmonsburg are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 64.8% of U.S. neighborhoods. In addition, 3.8% 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 68.1% 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, 36.5% 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 26.7% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (19.6%), and 16.7% in clerical, assistant, and tech support 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 neighborhood is English, spoken by 96.4% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Italian, Polish and German/Yiddish.
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 Harmonsburg, PA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (31.8%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (22.6%), and residents who report English roots (9.1%), and some of the residents are also of Italian ancestry (6.1%), along with some Polish ancestry residents (4.1%), among others.
Getting to Work
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 (40.5% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (89.8%) 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.
SCOUT’s patented match algorithm identifies the most similar neighborhoods to a subject location, and quantifies the similarity to the subject location. This allows analysts to identify the most similar neighborhoods in a local market area for appraisals, investments, and research.
The algorithm uses 273 neighborhood conditions, identifies the dominant dimensions underlying the conditions and calculates the similarity. This captures the true culture and character of locations, economic conditions, and trends.
The closer to 100% means the locations are nearly identical. 80% is a very good, but not excellent match, and so forth.
