Mount Pleasant, MI (City Center / Central Michigan University)

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 City Center / Central Michigan University neighborhood in Mount Pleasant are low income, making it among the lowest income neighborhoods in America. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 97.1% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 11.9% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 55.0% 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 City Center / Central Michigan University neighborhood, 33.6% 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 28.9% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations (20.9%), and 16.0% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.

Languages

The most common language spoken in the City Center / Central Michigan University neighborhood is English, spoken by 88.1% of households.

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 City Center / Central Michigan University neighborhood in Mount Pleasant, MI, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (25.8%). There are also a number of people of Italian ancestry (6.9%), and residents who report Irish roots (6.8%), and some of the residents are also of Polish ancestry (6.1%), along with some Mexican ancestry residents (5.1%), 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 City Center / Central Michigan University neighborhood spend under 15 minutes commuting one-way to work (64.4% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.

Here most residents (48.1%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In addition, quite a number also hop out the door and walk to work to get to work (32.1%) . In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.