Northwood is a very small city located in the state of Iowa. With a population of 2,051 people and just one neighborhood, Northwood is the 259th largest community in Iowa. Northwood has an unusually large stock of pre-World War II architecture, making it one of the older and more historic cities.
Because occupations involving physical labor dominate the local economy, Northwood is generally considered to be a blue-collar town. 35.48% of the Northwood workforce is employed in blue-collar occupations, compared to the national average of 27.7%. Overall, Northwood is a city of service providers, production and manufacturing workers, and sales and office workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Northwood who work in food service (10.57%), management occupations (9.65%), and office and administrative support (9.47%).
Because of many things, Northwood is a very good place for families to consider. With an enviable combination of good schools, low crime, college-educated neighbors who tend to support education because of their own experiences, and a high rate of home ownership in predominantly single-family properties, Northwood really has some of the features that families look for when choosing a good community to raise children. Is Northwood perfect? Of course not, and if you like frenetic nightlife, it will be far from your cup of tea. But overall this is a solid community, with many things to recommend it as a family-friendly place to live.
In terms of college education, the citizens of Northwood rank slightly lower than the national average. 16.05% of adults 25 and older in Northwood have a bachelor's degree or advanced degree, while 21.84% of adults have a 4-year degree or higher in the average American community.
The per capita income in Northwood in 2022 was $30,975, which is lower middle income relative to Iowa, and middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $123,900 for a family of four. However, Northwood contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
The people who call Northwood home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Northwood residents report their race to be White, followed by Asian. Important ancestries of people in Northwood include Norwegian, German, Irish, English, and Danish.
The most common language spoken in Northwood is English. Other important languages spoken here include Italian and Polish.
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 91.5% of the neighborhoods in America.
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Norwegian and Danish ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 29.5% of this neighborhood's residents have Norwegian ancestry and 2.7% have Danish ancestry.
is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 2.3% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak German/Yiddish at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 97.0% of the neighborhoods in America.
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 Northwood are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 64.0% of U.S. neighborhoods. In addition, 8.6% 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 54.2% of America'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, 33.3% 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 31.2% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (22.6%), and 13.0% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 96.1% of households. Some people also speak German/Yiddish (2.3%).
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 Northwood, IA, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Norwegian (29.5%). There are also a number of people of German ancestry (26.3%), and residents who report Irish roots (8.5%), and some of the residents are also of English ancestry (4.1%), along with some Danish ancestry residents (2.7%), 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 (45.3% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.
Here most residents (81.5%) 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 (11.9%) . In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.