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.
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.
Occupations and Workforce
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%).
Setting & Lifestyle
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.
Demographics
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.
Notable & Unique Neighborhood Characteristics
Many things matter about a neighborhood, but the first thing most people notice is the way a neighborhood looks and its particular character. For example, one might notice whether the buildings all date from a certain time period or whether shop signs are in multiple languages. This particular neighborhood in Iron River, the neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
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 34.8%, which is higher than 96.6% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
Length of Commute
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.
Diversity
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.
The Neighbors
There are two complementary measures for understanding the income of a neighborhood's residents: the average and the extremes. While a neighborhood may be relatively wealthy overall, it is equally important to understand the rate of people - particularly children - who are living at or below the federal poverty line, which is extremely low income. Some neighborhoods with a lower average income may actually have a lower childhood poverty rate than another with a higher average income, and this helps us understand the conditions and character of a 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.
A neighborhood is far different if it is dominated by enlisted military personnel rather than people who earn their living by farming. It is also different if most of the neighbors are clerical support or managers. What is wonderful is the sheer diversity of neighborhoods, allowing you to find the type that fits your lifestyle and aspirations.
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.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 97.7% of households.
Ethnicity / Ancestry
Boston's Beacon Hill blue-blood streets, Brooklyn's Orthodox Jewish enclaves, Los Angeles' Persian neighborhoods. Each has its own culture derived primarily from the ancestries and culture of the residents who call these neighborhoods home. Likewise, each neighborhood in America has its own culture – some more unique than others – based on lifestyle, occupations, the types of households – and importantly – on the ethnicities and ancestries of the people who live in the neighborhood. Understanding where people came from, who their grandparents or great-grandparents were, can help you understand how a neighborhood is today.
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.
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 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.
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.
