Iron River is a very small city located in the state of Michigan. With a population of 3,032 people and just one neighborhood, Iron River is the 274th largest community in Michigan.
Iron River is a blue-collar town, with 41.66% of people working in blue-collar occupations, while the average in America is just 27.7%. Overall, Iron River is a city of service providers, production and manufacturing workers, and sales and office workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Iron River who work in maintenance occupations (10.20%), food service (10.20%), and office and administrative support (8.81%).
It is a fairly quiet city 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!) Iron River 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. Iron River has few renters and college students. But the biggest reason it is quieter in Iron River than in most places in America, is that there are just simply fewer people living here. If you think trees make good neighbors, Iron River may be for you.
Compared to the rest of the country, citizens of Iron River spend much less time in their cars: on average, their commute to work is only 13.20 minutes. This also means that noise and pollution levels in the city are less than they would otherwise be.
Iron River is a small city, and as such doesn't have a public transit system that people use to get to and from their jobs every day.
The citizens of Iron River are slightly less educated than the national average of 21.84% for the average city or town: 16.55% of adults in Iron River have a bachelor's degree or advanced degree
The per capita income in Iron River in 2022 was $26,197, which is lower middle income relative to Michigan and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $104,788 for a family of four. However, Iron River contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
The people who call Iron River home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Iron River residents report their race to be White, followed by Native American. Important ancestries of people in Iron River include German, Italian, Swedish, Polish, and English.
The most common language spoken in Iron River is English. Other important languages spoken here include Polish and Italian.
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.
Vacant homes and apartments are a significant characteristic of this neighborhood. In fact, with 34.8% of the residential real estate vacant, the neighborhood claims the distinction of having a higher vacancy rate than 96.6% of the neighborhoods in America. This can either be because much of the property is seasonally occupied, like in many vacation areas, or that much of the real estate is more permanently abandoned.
Regardless of the means by which residents commute, this neighborhood has a length of commute that is notable. Residents of the neighborhood have the pleasure of having one of the shortest commutes to work of any neighborhood in America. 61.2% of the residents have a commute time from home to work (one way) of less than fifteen minutes. This is a higher proportion of residents enjoying a short trip to work than NeighborhoodScout found in 96.4% of U.S. neighborhoods. Less time commuting means more time for other things in life.
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Finnish and French Canadian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 11.8% of this neighborhood's residents have Finnish ancestry and 4.1% have French Canadian ancestry.
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 Iron River are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 94.5% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 43.5% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 91.3% of U.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, 37.2% 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 21.9% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (21.4%), and 17.1% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 97.7% of households.
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 Iron River, MI, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (21.5%). There are also a number of people of Italian ancestry (16.4%), and residents who report Finnish roots (11.8%), and some of the residents are also of Polish ancestry (11.0%), along with some English ancestry residents (10.7%), among others.
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 under 15 minutes commuting one-way to work (61.2% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.
Here most residents (79.9%) 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 (11.3%) . In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.