Union Pier is a very small town located in the state of Michigan. With a population of 1,493 people and just one neighborhood, Union Pier is the 407th largest community in Michigan.
Union Pier real estate is some of the most expensive in Michigan, although Union Pier house values don't compare to the most expensive real estate in the U.S.
Union Pier is neither predominantly blue-collar nor white-collar, instead having a mixed workforce of both blue-collar and white-collar jobs. Overall, Union Pier is a town of managers, professionals, and sales and office workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Union Pier who work in management occupations (25.67%), sales jobs (21.39%), and art, media, and design (7.84%).
Of important note, Union Pier is also a town of artists. Union Pier has more artists, designers and people working in media than 90% of the communities in America. This concentration of artists helps shape Union Pier’s character.
Also of interest is that Union Pier has more people living here who work in computers and math than 95% of the places in the US.
One interesting thing about the economy is that relatively large numbers of people worked from their home: 10.53% of the workforce. While this number may seem small overall, as a fraction of the total workforce this is high compared to the rest of the county. 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.
Another notable thing is that Union Pier is an extremely popular destination for tourists and seasonal residents. So much of the population is seasonal such that the town’s population swells significantly during the vacation season, and drops again when the season ends. Because of this, much of the local economy is centered around tourism; some businesses may be operated only during the high season. During the low season, year-round residents will notice that the city is a substantially quieter place to live.
In addition, Union Pier is home to many people who could be described as "urban sophisticates", which are people who are not only wealthy and employed in professional occupations, but highly educated to boot. Urban sophisticates have urbane tastes - whether they reside in a big or small city, a suburb, or a little town. Urban sophisticates support bookstores, quality clothing stores, enjoy luxury travel, and in big cities, they are truly the patrons of the arts, attending and supporting institutions such as opera, symphony, ballet, and theatre.
The town is relatively quiet, having a combination of lower population density and few of those groups of people who have a tendency to be noisy. For example, Union Pier has relatively fewer families with younger children, and/or college students. Combined, this makes Union Pier a pretty quiet place to live overall. If you like quiet, you will probably enjoy it here.
One downside of living in Union Pier, however, is that residents on average have to contend with a long commute, spending on average 33.09 minutes every day commuting to work.
Being a small town, Union Pier does not have a public transit system used by locals to get to and from work.
The citizens of Union Pier are among the most well-educated in the nation: 45.86% of adults in Union Pier have a bachelor's degree or even advanced degree, whereas the average US city has 21.84% holding at least a bachelor's degree.
The per capita income in Union Pier in 2022 was $67,885, which is wealthy relative to Michigan and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $271,540 for a family of four. However, Union Pier contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
The people who call Union Pier home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Union Pier residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Important ancestries of people in Union Pier include German, English, Irish, Swedish, and Polish.
The most common language spoken in Union Pier 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.
Of note is NeighborhoodScout's research finding that the neighborhood has some of the lowest rates of children living in poverty of any neighborhood in the United States. In a nation where approximately 1 in 4 children are living in poverty, the community truly stands out from the rest in this regard.
In addition, if you're nearing retirement age, or in retirement, the is an excellent choice for you to consider for top-quality retirement living. This neighborhood is rated by NeighborhoodScout as among the top 7.7% of retiree-friendly neighborhoods in Michigan, combining peace and quiet, safety from crime, and offering diverse housing options from which retirees can choose. Maybe it's because of these amenities that a large proportion of the residents here are college educated seniors, mixed with other age groups. For these and other reasons, NeighborhoodScout identifies this neighborhood as a top-notch place to consider if you are thinking of or planning to retire in Michigan. In addition to being an excellent choice for active retirees, this neighborhood is also a very good choice for urban sophisticates.
Regardless of the means by which residents commute, this neighborhood has a length of commute that is notable. Long commutes can be brutal. They take time, money, and energy, leaving less of you for yourself and your family. The residents of the neighborhood unfortunately have the distinction of having, on average, a longer commute than most any neighborhood in America. 30.1% of commuters here travel more than one hour just one-way to work. That is more than two hours per day. This percentage with two-hour + round-trip commutes is higher than NeighborhoodScout found in 99.9% of all neighborhoods in America.
Real estate in the neighborhood is almost exclusively owner-occupied. NeighborhoodScout's analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher rate of owner-occupied housing than is found in 99.1% of U.S. neighborhoods. If you are seeking to rent, this neighborhood may not have many options, but high rates of ownership often indicate stability in a neighborhood. 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 70.0%, which is higher than 99.7% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
In addition, one of the notable things about is that it is one of the quietest neighborhoods in America, according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis and quantitative rating of quietness. When you are here, you will find it to be very quiet. If quiet and peaceful are your cup of tea, you may have found a great place for you.
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Swedish and Swiss ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 20.7% of this neighborhood's residents have Swedish ancestry and 3.3% have Swiss ancestry.
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 Union Pier are middle-income, making it a moderate income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 58.4% of the neighborhoods in America. In addition, 0.0% 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 100.0% 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, 52.8% of the working population is employed in executive, management, and professional occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants, with 28.9% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations (16.2%), and 2.1% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
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 99.6% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Polish and Italian.
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 Union Pier, MI, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (29.8%). There are also a number of people of English ancestry (26.0%), and residents who report Irish roots (21.2%), and some of the residents are also of Swedish ancestry (20.7%), along with some Polish ancestry residents (13.8%), among others.
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 (41.4% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America. However, there is also a significant group of residents (30.1%) who commute over an hour in each direction.
Here most residents (81.7%) 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 (7.8%) . In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.