Athens is a tiny village located in the state of Michigan. With a population of 957 people and just one neighborhood, Athens is the 489th largest community in Michigan. Athens has a large stock of pre-World War II architecture, making it one of the older and more historic villages in the country.
When you are in Athens, you'll notice that it is more blue-collar than most other communities in America. 45.83% of Athens’s employed work in blue-collar jobs, while America averages only 27.7% that do. Overall, Athens is a village of production and manufacturing workers, service providers, and professionals. There are especially a lot of people living in Athens who work in healthcare (8.84%), maintenance occupations (7.53%), and office and administrative support (7.37%).
Also of interest is that Athens has more people living here who work in computers and math than 95% of the places in the US.
Telecommuters are a relatively large percentage of the workforce: 11.15% 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.
The village 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, Athens has relatively fewer families with younger children, and/or college students. Combined, this makes Athens a pretty quiet place to live overall. If you like quiet, you will probably enjoy it here.
One downside of living in Athens, however, is that residents on average have to contend with a long commute, spending on average 31.47 minutes every day commuting to work.
Being a small village, Athens does not have a public transit system used by locals to get to and from work.
The citizens of Athens have a very low rate of college education: just 9.15% of people over 25 have a bachelor's degree or advanced degree, compared to a national average of 21.84% for all cities.
The per capita income in Athens in 2022 was $34,588, which is middle income relative to Michigan and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $138,352 for a family of four. However, Athens contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
Athens is a somewhat ethnically-diverse village. The people who call Athens home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Athens residents report their race to be White, followed by Native American. Important ancestries of people in Athens include Irish, English, German, Polish, and Scottish.
The most common language spoken in Athens is English. Other important languages spoken here include Polish and Italian.
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 Athens, the neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
How wealthy a neighborhood is, from very wealthy, to middle income, to low income is very formative with regard to the personality and character of a neighborhood. Equally important is the rate of people, particularly children, who live below the federal poverty line. In some wealthy gated communities, the areas immediately surrounding can have high rates of childhood poverty, which indicates other social issues. NeighborhoodScout's analysis reveals both aspects of income and poverty for this neighborhood.
The neighbors in the neighborhood in Athens are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 62.1% of U.S. neighborhoods. In addition, 6.9% 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 57.7% 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, 37.7% 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 29.5% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (17.4%), and 13.9% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 98.3% of households. Some people also speak Polish (2.2%).
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 Athens, MI, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (17.8%). There are also a number of people of English ancestry (16.0%), and residents who report Irish roots (12.2%), and some of the residents are also of Dutch ancestry (2.0%), along with some Scottish ancestry residents (1.9%), 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 between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (36.6% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (83.5%) 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 (8.0%) . In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.