Prairie City is a tiny city located in the state of Oregon. With a population of 838 people and just one neighborhood, Prairie City is the 193rd largest community in Oregon.
Unlike some cities where white-collar or blue-collar occupations dominate the local economy, Prairie City is neither predominantly one nor the other. Instead, it has a mixed workforce of both white- and blue-collar jobs. Overall, Prairie City is a city of construction workers and builders, sales and office workers, and service providers. There are especially a lot of people living in Prairie City who work in sales jobs (19.69%), management occupations (11.97%), and teaching (6.95%).
And if you like science, one thing you'll find is that Prairie City has lots of scientists living in town - whether they be life scientists, physical scientists (like astronomers), or social scientists (like geographers!). So, if you're scientific-minded, you might like it here too.
Of important note, Prairie City is also a city of artists. Prairie City has more artists, designers and people working in media than 90% of the communities in America. This concentration of artists helps shape Prairie City’s character.
Telecommuters are a relatively large percentage of the workforce: 9.32% 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.
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!) Prairie City 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. Prairie City has few renters and college students. But the biggest reason it is quieter in Prairie City than in most places in America, is that there are just simply fewer people living here. If you think trees make good neighbors, Prairie City may be for you.
One of the benefits of Prairie City is that there is very little traffic. The average commute to work is 14.16 minutes, which is substantially less than the national average. Not only does this mean that the drive to work is less aggravating, but noise and pollution levels are lower as a result.
Prairie City 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 education level of Prairie City citizens is a little higher than the average for US cities and towns: 24.13% of adults in Prairie City have at least a bachelor's degree.
The per capita income in Prairie City in 2022 was $34,940, which is upper middle income relative to Oregon, and middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $139,760 for a family of four. However, Prairie City contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
The people who call Prairie City home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Prairie City residents report their race to be White, followed by Native Hawaiian. Important ancestries of people in Prairie City include German, English, Italian, Irish, and Swiss.
The most common language spoken in Prairie City is English. Other important languages spoken here include Italian and African languages.
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.
Unpopulated, and rural, the neighborhood is one of the least crowded neighborhoods in all of America. If you like open space, no traffic, and lots of room, this neighborhood may be just what you are looking for. According to NeighborhoodScout's leading research, this neighborhood is less densely populated than 99.5% of the neighborhoods in America. 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.
It used to be that most Americans lived on the farm, or otherwise made their living from the land, the forests, or the sea. With global trade and an economy increasingly based on providing services to one another, fewer people farm, fish or harvest timber now than at any time in American history. But according to NeighborhoodScout's leading analysis, the neighborhood stands apart from most American neighborhood due to the proportion of its residents still working in these fields. With 12.3% of the workforce so employed, this neighborhood has a greater concentration of such workers than 99.2% of U.S. neighborhoods.
In the neighborhood, walking to work is a real option for many. In fact, NeighborhoodScout's exclusive research reveals walking to and from work is the chosen way to commute for 20.6% of residents here. This is a higher proportion of walking commuters than we found in 98.3% of American neighborhoods. Get ready to put on your walking shoes if you move here!
Also, if your dream is to be able to ride your bike to work each day, look no further than this unique neighborhood. With 3.6% of residents in the neighborhood commuting on a bicycle to and from work daily, this neighborhood has more bicycle commuters than 96.8% of all neighborhoods in the U.S., according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis.
If you're planning where to retire, the neighborhood in Prairie City 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 OR, 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 86.2% of the neighborhoods in Oregon. If you are considering retiring to Oregon, this is a good neighborhood to look at.
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Swiss and French Canadian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 2.2% of this neighborhood's residents have Swiss ancestry and 3.6% have French Canadian 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 Prairie City are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 86.1% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 44.9% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 91.8% of U.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, 35.3% 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 24.5% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations (16.3%), and 12.3% in farming, forestry, or commercial fishing.
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 95.7% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Italian and Spanish.
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 Prairie City, OR, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (24.3%). There are also a number of people of English ancestry (14.7%), and residents who report Irish roots (8.4%), and some of the residents are also of Italian ancestry (5.7%), along with some Mexican ancestry residents (4.8%), 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 (55.8% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.
Here most residents (56.1%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In addition, quite a number also hop out the door and walk to work to get to work (20.6%) and 6.4% of residents also carpool with coworkers, friends, or neighbors for their daily commute. In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.