Crystal is a tiny town located in the state of Michigan. With a population of 888 people and just one neighborhood, Crystal is the 500th largest community in Michigan.
Crystal is neither predominantly blue-collar nor white-collar, instead having a mixed workforce of both blue-collar and white-collar jobs. Overall, Crystal is a town of sales and office workers, construction workers and builders, and managers. There are especially a lot of people living in Crystal who work in management occupations (18.22%), office and administrative support (16.28%), and sales jobs (10.47%).
Another notable thing is that Crystal is a major vacation destination. Much of the town’s population is seasonal: many people own second homes and only live there part-time, during the vacation season. The effect on the local economy is that many of the businesses are dependent on tourist dollars, and may operate only during the high season. As the vacation season ends, Crystal’s population drops significantly, such that year-round residents will notice that the city is a much quieter place to live.
It is a fairly quiet town 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!) Crystal 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. Crystal has few renters and college students. But the biggest reason it is quieter in Crystal than in most places in America, is that there are just simply fewer people living here. If you think trees make good neighbors, Crystal may be for you.
In Crystal, however, the average commute to work is quite long. On average, people spend 36.76 minutes each day getting to work, which is significantly higher than the national average.
As is often the case in a small town, Crystal doesn't have a public transportation system that people use for their commute.
The overall education level of Crystal citizens is substantially higher than the typical US community, as 29.82% of adults in Crystal have at least a bachelor's degree, and the average American community has 21.84%.
The per capita income in Crystal in 2022 was $32,215, which is middle income relative to Michigan and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $128,860 for a family of four. However, Crystal contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
The people who call Crystal home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Crystal residents report their race to be White, followed by Asian. Important ancestries of people in Crystal include Irish, English, German, Dutch, and French.
The most common language spoken in Crystal is English. Other important languages spoken here include German/Yiddish 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 Crystal, the neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
Whether walking, biking, riding, or driving, the length of one's commute is an important factor for one's quality of life. The neighborhood stands out for its commute length, according to NeighborhoodScout's analysis. 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. 15.6% 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 98.9% of all neighborhoods in America.
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Dutch and Cuban ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 6.0% of this neighborhood's residents have Dutch ancestry and 4.0% have Cuban ancestry.
is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 3.6% 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 98.5% of the neighborhoods in America.
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 Crystal are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 68.2% of U.S. neighborhoods. In addition, 8.0% 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 54.5% 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, 36.0% of the working population is employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations, with 25.3% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in executive, management, and professional occupations (20.3%), and 18.1% in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants.
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 94.2% of households. Other important languages spoken here include German/Yiddish and Italian.
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 Crystal, MI, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Irish (16.2%). There are also a number of people of German ancestry (12.9%), and residents who report English roots (11.6%), and some of the residents are also of Dutch ancestry (6.0%), along with some Cuban ancestry residents (4.0%), 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 between 45 minutes and one hour commuting one-way to work (28.6% of working residents), longer and tougher than most commutes in America.
Here most residents (83.8%) 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 (12.2%) . In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.