Central Valley, NY

ZIP code 10917 is assigned to Central Valley, NY, and falls within Orange County. Like every US postal code, it began as a mail-routing device rather than a geographic boundary — the US Postal Service groups delivery routes under a single code so carriers and sorting equipment can process mail efficiently. Today it also serves as a practical shorthand for the area itself: roughly 1,575 people live inside it.

At 327 residents per square mile spread over 4.817 square miles, 10917 reads as a small-town area. It is a sparsely populated postal code, and density shapes almost everything else on this page — how people get to work, whether they own or rent, and what housing costs.

Household earnings here sit well above the national picture. The median household income of $126,522 places 10917 in the upper reaches of American postal codes, ahead of 93% of them. The US median for comparison is $70,109. Bear in mind that median income describes the midpoint household, not the average — it is not pulled upward by a handful of very high earners the way a mean would be.

Housing in 10917 costs well above the national median. A typical home is valued at $553,000 against a US median of $207,500. Ownership dominates: 87.9% of occupied homes are owner-occupied, which usually signals an established residential area with relatively low turnover.

The building stock is dominated by detached single-family houses, which account for 82.7% of housing units here. The median construction year is 1950, making the housing here mid-century. The vacancy rate of 21.4% is high, which in many places reflects seasonal or second-home use rather than abandonment.

The population skews broadly in line with the national age profile, with a median age of 43.5 against 42 nationally. Households are relatively large at 3.28 people on average, with 86.5% classified as family households.

Getting to work takes 36.6 minutes on average one way. The dominant mode is drove alone at 78.8% of workers.

Beyond addressing mail, 10917 does a lot of quiet administrative work. Retailers use it to calculate shipping and sales tax at checkout. Insurers use it to set premiums, since risk profiles vary geographically. Employers and marketers use it to define service areas. Government agencies use it to route benefits and organise reporting. If you have ever been asked for a postal code by a form that clearly does not intend to send you anything, this is why.

For anyone weighing a move, 10917 offers a compact profile of Central Valley: 1,575 residents, a median household income of $126,522, 45.7% of adults holding a bachelor's degree or higher, and an unemployment rate of 15.8%. A handful of figures like these answer more relocation questions than most neighbourhood guides do.

One caution worth repeating: a postal code is not a neighbourhood. 10917 may cover parts of several distinct areas, and a single neighbourhood in Central Valley may be split across more than one code. Boundaries also shift as USPS adjusts delivery routes. Treat the figures here as describing a delivery area, which is what they actually measure.