This is a small community in a single neighborhood.
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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.
Watersmeet is a tiny town located in the state of Michigan. With a population of 408 people and just one neighborhood, Watersmeet is the 588th largest community in Michigan.
Occupations and Workforce
Watersmeet is a decidedly white-collar town, with fully 91.60% of the workforce employed in white-collar jobs, well above the national average. Overall, Watersmeet is a town of sales and office workers, service providers, and managers. There are especially a lot of people living in Watersmeet who work in sales jobs (33.61%), law enforcement and fire fighting (26.89%), and business and financial occupations (10.08%).
And if you like science, one thing you'll find is that Watersmeet 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.
Setting & Lifestyle
Another notable thing is that Watersmeet is an extremely popular vacation destination. A significant portion of the population is seasonal. During the vacation season, the town experiences a large influx of people who take up residence in second homes they own in the area. As the vacation season ends, the population drops again, leaving behind a substantially quieter and smaller town.
Because of many things, Watersmeet 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, Watersmeet really has some of the features that families look for when choosing a good community to raise children. Is Watersmeet 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.
Compared to the rest of the country, citizens of Watersmeet spend much less time in their cars: on average, their commute to work is only 15.32 minutes. This also means that noise and pollution levels in the town are less than they would otherwise be.
As is often the case in a small town, Watersmeet doesn't have a public transportation system that people use for their commute.
Demographics
The rate of college-level education in Watersmeet is quite a bit lower than the national average among all cities of 21.84%: just 12.07% of people here over 25 have a bachelor's degree or an advanced degree.
The per capita income in Watersmeet in 2022 was $31,654, which is middle income relative to Michigan and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $126,616 for a family of four. However, Watersmeet contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
Watersmeet is an extremely ethnically-diverse town. The people who call Watersmeet home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Watersmeet residents report their race to be White, followed by Native American. Important ancestries of people in Watersmeet include Italian, Polish, Finnish, Irish, and Welsh.
The most common language spoken in Watersmeet is English. Other important languages spoken here include Native American languages and Polish.
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 Watersmeet, the neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
Real Estate
Vacant homes and apartments are a significant characteristic of this neighborhood. In fact, with 55.2% of the residential real estate vacant, the neighborhood claims the distinction of having a higher vacancy rate than 99.1% 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.
In addition, this neighborhood has wide open spaces, few people, and lots of space to stretch out. If you like locations that fit that description, you may like this neighborhood. Based on NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis, with only 4 people per square mile living here, this neighborhood is less crowded than 98.5% of 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.
People
If you are planning to retire in Michigan, this neighborhood should be on your must-see list. For many reasons, may be considered a retiree's dream neighborhood. According to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis and metrics, it's peaceful and quiet, has above average safety from crime compared to other neighborhoods in Michigan, while also offering a diverse range of housing options. This, along with the vibrant mix of very educated seniors and other age groups who choose to live here, makes the neighborhood more retiree-friendly than 98.6% of neighborhoods in MI. If a Michigan retirement is in your future, this neighborhood should be one of the places you visit.
Diversity
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Finnish and Croatian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 16.6% of this neighborhood's residents have Finnish ancestry and 2.2% have Croatian 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 Watersmeet are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 69.6% of U.S. neighborhoods. In addition, 6.8% 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 59.1% 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, 40.0% 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 30.9% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations (20.1%), and 8.1% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
Languages
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 98.3% of households. Some people also speak Italian (4.9%).
Ethnicity / Ancestry
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 Watersmeet, MI, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (19.0%). There are also a number of people of Finnish ancestry (16.6%), and residents who report Native American roots (9.9%), and some of the residents are also of Italian ancestry (8.6%), along with some Irish ancestry residents (7.5%), among others.
Getting to Work
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 (46.7% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.
Here most residents (80.0%) 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 (9.3%) . 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.
