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.
Interlochen is a tiny town located in the state of Michigan. With a population of 694 people and just one neighborhood, Interlochen is the 531st largest community in Michigan. Interlochen has seen a significant amount of newer housing growth in recent years. Quite often, new home construction is the result of new residents moving in who are middle class or wealthier, attracted by jobs, a healthy local economy, or other amenities as they leave nearby or far away areas for greener pastures. This seems to be the case in Interlochen, where the median household income is $80,625.00.
Interlochen real estate is some of the most expensive in Michigan, although Interlochen house values don't compare to the most expensive real estate in the U.S.
Occupations and Workforce
Because occupations involving physical labor dominate the local economy, Interlochen is generally considered to be a blue-collar town. 54.01% of the Interlochen workforce is employed in blue-collar occupations, compared to the national average of 27.7%. Overall, Interlochen is a town of construction workers and builders, production and manufacturing workers, and professionals. There are especially a lot of people living in Interlochen who work in healthcare (9.09%), business and financial occupations (8.56%), and office and administrative support (7.49%).
Also of interest is that Interlochen has more people living here who work in computers and math than 95% of the places in the US.
Telecommuters are a relatively large percentage of the workforce: 16.04% 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.
Setting & Lifestyle
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!) Interlochen 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. Interlochen has few renters and college students. But the biggest reason it is quieter in Interlochen than in most places in America, is that there are just simply fewer people living here. If you think trees make good neighbors, Interlochen may be for you.
One downside of living in Interlochen, however, is that residents on average have to contend with a long commute, spending on average 33.39 minutes every day commuting to work.
As is often the case in a small town, Interlochen doesn't have a public transportation system that people use for their commute.
Demographics
The overall education level of Interlochen is somewhat higher than in the average US city of 21.84%: 25.33% of adults 25 and older in the town have at least a bachelor's degree.
The per capita income in Interlochen in 2022 was $34,355, which is middle income relative to Michigan and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $137,420 for a family of four. However, Interlochen contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
The people who call Interlochen home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Interlochen residents report their race to be White, followed by Native American. Important ancestries of people in Interlochen include English, German, Polish, Irish, and Swedish.
The most common language spoken in Interlochen 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.
Real Estate
Despite all of the residential real estate here in the neighborhood, NeighborhoodScout has discovered that much of it is vacant. In resort or second-home vacation areas, this naturally occurs because homes and apartments are seasonally occupied, and empty for a portion of the year. In non-vacation or resort areas, however, this can be an indicator of property abandonment or a weak real estate market. The vacancy rate here is 32.0%, which is higher than 95.8% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
People
If you're planning where to retire, the neighborhood in Interlochen is a great option to consider. According to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive retirement dream area analysis, it's peaceful and quiet, has above average safety ratings compared to other neighborhoods in MI, offers a wide range of housing options, and has already attracted an enviable mix of college educated seniors. This neighborhood ranks as better for retirement living than 85.7% of the neighborhoods in Michigan. If you are considering retiring to Michigan, this is a good neighborhood to look at.
Diversity
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Scottish and Yugoslav ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 9.9% of this neighborhood's residents have Scottish ancestry and 1.4% have Yugoslav ancestry.
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 Interlochen are middle-income, making it a moderate income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 51.2% of the neighborhoods in America. In addition, 8.4% 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 54.0% of America'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, 33.9% of the working population is employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is manufacturing and laborer occupations, with 28.6% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in executive, management, and professional occupations (27.6%), and 9.4% 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 97.1% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Italian and Spanish.
Ethnicity / Ancestry
Culture is shared learned behavior. We learn it from our parents, their parents, our houses of worship, and much of our culture – our learned behavior – comes from our ancestors. That is why ancestry and ethnicity can be so interesting and important to understand: places with concentrations of people of one or more ancestries often express those shared learned behaviors and this gives each neighborhood its own culture. Even different neighborhoods in the same city can have drastically different cultures.
In the neighborhood in Interlochen, MI, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as English (21.9%). There are also a number of people of German ancestry (20.9%), and residents who report Scottish roots (9.9%), and some of the residents are also of Irish ancestry (9.8%), along with some Italian ancestry residents (4.9%), among others.
Getting to Work
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 (43.6% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (75.5%) 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 (12.4%) . 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.
