Grand Rapids, MI (Roosevelt Park South)

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 Roosevelt Park South neighborhood in Grand Rapids are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 79.5% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 37.5% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 88.0% 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 Roosevelt Park South neighborhood, 48.0% 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 25.5% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (16.7%), and 9.4% in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants.

Languages

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 Roosevelt Park South neighborhood is Spanish, spoken by 53.5% of households. Other important languages spoken here include English and African languages.

Ethnicity / Ancestry

Culture is the shared learned behavior of peoples. Undeniably, different ethnicities and ancestries have different cultural traditions, and as a result, neighborhoods with concentrations of residents of one or another ethnicities or ancestries will express those cultures. It is what makes the North End in Boston so fun to visit for the Italian restaurants, bakeries, culture, and charm, and similarly, why people enjoy visiting Chinatown in San Francisco.

In the Roosevelt Park South neighborhood in Grand Rapids, MI, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Mexican (37.9%). There are also a number of people of Dominican ancestry (8.2%), and residents who report Swedish roots (4.5%), and some of the residents are also of Puerto Rican ancestry (3.6%), along with some Sub-Saharan African ancestry residents (3.5%), among others. In addition, 30.7% of the residents of this neighborhood were born in another country.

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 Roosevelt Park South neighborhood spend under 15 minutes commuting one-way to work (41.5% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.

Here most residents (66.9%) 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 (12.9%) and 10.9% of residents also ride the bus 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.