Year-Round Living in Scarborough, Jerusalem, and Galilee

Villages Inside Narragansett, Not a Town of Their Own

Scarborough, Jerusalem, and Galilee carry their own names, their own working-waterfront and beach identities, and -- as covered below -- some genuinely distinct local facts, but none of them is a separate incorporated municipality. All three sit within the Town of Narragansett, Rhode Island, and anyone researching them alongside the town's own hub pages on this site will see the same year-round-versus-summer population story already documented there: 14,532 year-round residents per the 2020 Census against an estimated summer population of more than 30,000. That town-wide swing applies here too, since these villages are part of the town it describes, but it is Narragansett's number, not a separate Scarborough, Jerusalem, or Galilee count -- no village-level year-round population figure was confirmed in this research, and none should be invented.

What follows instead are the facts genuinely specific to living in this corner of town: a neighborhood-level real estate data source that breaks out Galilee and Jerusalem on their own, a working fishing port with real current economic weight, and a village-level governmental quirk -- Jerusalem's land isolation from the rest of Narragansett -- that materially affects who shows up when someone calls 911.

A 43.4 Percent Vacancy Rate: A Neighborhood That Empties Out

NeighborhoodScout, a commercial real estate and demographic data provider, publishes a profile specifically for "Galilee & Jerusalem" as its own neighborhood within Narragansett -- separate from the town-wide Census and Redfin figures used on this site's Narragansett hub pages. It reports a vacancy rate of 43.4 percent here, described by the source as 98.2 percent higher than the U.S. average, with 39.6 percent of housing classified as seasonally occupied. That is a genuinely different texture than living in a more typically year-round Narragansett neighborhood: it means that a large share of the homes around a year-round resident in Galilee or Jerusalem sit empty for much of the year, rather than being occupied by other full-time neighbors.

The same source puts the median home price at $1,091,913 -- 95.2 percent above the median for Rhode Island neighborhoods generally -- and the average rental price at $3,012 a month, about 85.0 percent above the Rhode Island average. Housing stock here skews toward small-to-medium single-family homes and mobile homes, much of it built between 1940 and 1969 with further construction through the 1990s. NeighborhoodScout is an algorithmic, commercial data aggregator rather than a government statistical agency, and its neighborhood boundaries and derived comparisons should be read as a real, named, citable estimate rather than Census-grade fact -- but it is the only source found in this research that reports Galilee and Jerusalem as their own distinct geography, and the vacancy and seasonal-occupancy figures are a specific, useful data point for anyone weighing what year-round life in this particular neighborhood is actually like, as opposed to Narragansett as a whole.

Galilee Is a Working Fishing Village, Not Just a Quiet Beach Neighborhood

Part of what makes Galilee a different kind of year-round neighborhood is that it is an active industrial waterfront, not simply a residential beach enclave. Per National Fisherman, the Port of Galilee is homeport to roughly 240 fishing vessels and crews -- real, current, working-boat traffic, engine noise, early-morning departures, and dock activity that a year-round resident here lives alongside, not a backdrop that disappears once summer visitors leave.

That fleet has real economic weight behind it, even though the figures below are statewide rather than Galilee-specific. Per a November 25, 2024 Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management press release, the state's commercial fishing industry generated $81.7 million in ex-vessel value during 2023. A separate Boston Globe analysis from July 2023 cited a statewide total of $100.6 million for 2022 (about a 10 percent inflation-adjusted decline from 2021), broken out by species: longfin squid and illex at $41.1 million, sea scallop at $18.3 million, American lobster and Jonah crab at $12.5 million, summer flounder at $5.7 million, and quahog clams at $4.7 million. These two figures come from different years and possibly different accounting methods, so they are presented here separately rather than as one reconciled number -- but Galilee is documented as home to the state's largest commercial fleet, which is what makes both figures relevant context for a neighborhood built around this industry.

The DEM also announced, in that same November 2024 release, a $15.5 million FEMA Hazard Mitigation grant matched with state funds for a total $17.2 million project to elevate structures and replace docks at the Port of Galilee, at the Division of Marine Fisheries' own Jerusalem facility, and at the Wickford Marine Base -- current, dated infrastructure investment informing work into 2025 and 2026, and confirmation that Jerusalem has its own named DEM marine facility distinct from Galilee's docks.

Jerusalem: Part of Narragansett on Paper, Policed by South Kingstown in Practice

The single most useful practical fact for anyone considering living in Jerusalem year-round is also the most surprising one. Per Wikipedia's Jerusalem, Rhode Island entry, Jerusalem sits across the harbor from Galilee at the east end of East Matunuck State Beach, and it is not connected by land to any other part of Narragansett -- its only land border is with the Matunuck section of the neighboring town of South Kingstown. As a direct consequence, fire and police service in Jerusalem is provided by South Kingstown, not by Narragansett, even though Jerusalem is legally part of Narragansett and its residents pay Narragansett property taxes. Anyone weighing year-round life in Jerusalem should know, going in, that the department that actually responds to a fire or a 911 call is South Kingstown's, not the town whose tax bill arrives in the mail.

The Galilee and Jerusalem names themselves share the same 1902 origin story: per Wikipedia, a Nova Scotian fisherman named Thomas Mann proposed the name Galilee for the fishing settlement, after the biblical Sea of Galilee fishing village. The naming of Jerusalem across the harbor is preserved as local lore rather than a documented official act -- a stranger reportedly asked a local old-timer what to call the area across the channel, and the old-timer answered "must be Jerusalem," pairing it naturally with Galilee. No source names the old-timer or the stranger, and none should be invented.

A lower-confidence source (Grokipedia, an AI-generated reference work) adds further detail -- a population estimate of roughly 200 to 300 year-round Jerusalem residents, a land-isolation date tied to the digging of the Point Judith Breachway around 1910 to 1914, and a causeway-flooding vulnerability along Succotash Road -- that this research could not independently confirm through a second authoritative source. Anyone relying on those specific figures should treat them as reported, not settled fact, and verify independently before making a decision around them.

Who Actually Lives Here: Retirees, Renters, and a Short Commute

Per the same NeighborhoodScout "Galilee & Jerusalem" profile, this neighborhood ranks favorably for retirees -- better than 97.2 percent of Rhode Island neighborhoods, per the source -- alongside a notable share of residents currently enrolled in college (29.2 percent), a demographic mix that likely reflects both the area's retiree appeal and its proximity to the University of Rhode Island. Reported childhood poverty sits at 9.4 percent. Notable ancestry groups include Irish (20.0 percent), Italian (18.5 percent), English (15.5 percent), and French (5.8 percent), with the source noting unusually high Eastern European and Portuguese ancestry representation relative to other U.S. neighborhoods -- plausible in a historic fishing port, though a demographic estimate rather than a Census figure.

On work and commuting, the source reports 42.2 percent of the workforce in professional occupations and 34.0 percent in sales and service, with 73.5 percent driving alone to work and 44.0 percent reporting a one-way commute under 15 minutes -- consistent with a neighborhood where many residents work locally rather than commuting long distances into Providence or beyond. As with the housing figures above, these are NeighborhoodScout's own neighborhood-level estimates, a different source and geography from the town-wide Census/ACS figures used on this site's Narragansett hub pages, and should not be blended with those town-wide numbers as though they were the same statistic.

Putting the Year-Round Picture Together

Living year-round in Scarborough, Jerusalem, or Galilee means living inside Narragansett on paper while experiencing something more specific in practice: a neighborhood where NeighborhoodScout reports 43.4 percent of housing sits vacant and nearly 40 percent is seasonally occupied, alongside an active commercial fishing port moving real cargo and real dollars through roughly 240 working vessels, and, in Jerusalem specifically, a village that depends on a neighboring town's fire and police department rather than Narragansett's own. None of that is inherently good or bad -- some year-round residents value the working-waterfront authenticity and the quiet of an off-season, mostly-empty neighborhood; others find a 43-percent vacancy rate and a patchwork of emergency-service jurisdiction genuinely inconvenient.

This page does not give legal, financial, or relocation advice, and several figures above -- the Grokipedia-sourced Jerusalem population and causeway details in particular -- are explicitly flagged as unconfirmed. Anyone seriously considering a year-round purchase or move to this specific neighborhood should independently verify current emergency-service arrangements with the Town of Narragansett and South Kingstown directly, confirm current home values and neighborhood boundaries with a Rhode Island-licensed real estate professional, and visit in the off-season as well as summer before deciding what year-round life here actually feels like.