Wessington Springs - Alpena is a very small town located in the state of South Dakota. With a population of 1,689 people and just one neighborhood, Wessington Springs - Alpena is the 75th largest community in South Dakota. Wessington Springs - Alpena has an unusually large stock of pre-World War II architecture, making it one of the older and more historic towns.
Unlike some towns, Wessington Springs - Alpena isn’t mainly white- or blue-collar. Instead, the most prevalent occupations for people in Wessington Springs - Alpena are a mix of both white- and blue-collar jobs. Overall, Wessington Springs - Alpena is a town of managers, sales and office workers, and professionals. There are especially a lot of people living in Wessington Springs - Alpena who work in management occupations (16.89%), office and administrative support (10.64%), and business and financial occupations (8.65%).
Telecommuters are a relatively large percentage of the workforce: 19.79% 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.
Because of many things, Wessington Springs - Alpena 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, Wessington Springs - Alpena really has some of the features that families look for when choosing a good community to raise children. Is Wessington Springs - Alpena 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 Wessington Springs - Alpena spend much less time in their cars: on average, their commute to work is only 17.66 minutes. This also means that noise and pollution levels in the town are less than they would otherwise be.
Wessington Springs - Alpena is a small town, and as such doesn't have a public transit system that people use to get to and from their jobs every day.
The citizens of Wessington Springs - Alpena are slightly better educated than the national average of 21.84% for all cities and towns, with 21.35% of adults in Wessington Springs - Alpena having a bachelor's degree or advanced degree.
The per capita income in Wessington Springs - Alpena in 2022 was $45,169, which is wealthy relative to South Dakota, and upper middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $180,676 for a family of four. However, Wessington Springs - Alpena contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
The people who call Wessington Springs - Alpena home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Wessington Springs - Alpena residents report their race to be White. Important ancestries of people in Wessington Springs - Alpena include German, Norwegian, Irish, English, and Czech.
The most common language spoken in Wessington Springs - Alpena is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Polish.
When you see a neighborhood for the first time, the most important thing is often the way it looks, like its homes and its setting. Some places look the same, but they only reveal their true character after living in them for a while because they contain a unique mix of occupational or cultural groups. This neighborhood is very unique in some important ways, according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive exploration and analysis.
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 3 people per square mile living here, this neighborhood is less crowded than 98.7% 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.
Each year, fewer and fewer Americans make their living as farmers, foresters, or fishers. But the neighborhood truly stands out among U.S. neighborhoods. According to exclusive NeighborhoodScout analysis, this neighborhood has a greater proportion of farmers, foresters, or fishers than 95.8% of all American neighborhoods. This is truly a unique cultural characteristic of this neighborhood.
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Norwegian and German ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 14.7% of this neighborhood's residents have Norwegian ancestry and 38.9% have German ancestry.
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 Wessington Springs - Alpena are middle-income, making it a moderate income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 45.4% of the neighborhoods in America. In addition, 9.6% 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 50.4% 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, 40.9% of the working population is employed in executive, management, and professional occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is manufacturing and laborer occupations, with 22.2% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (17.5%), and 15.5% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 96.7% of households. Some people also speak Spanish (2.9%).
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 Wessington Springs - Alpena, SD, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (38.9%). There are also a number of people of Norwegian ancestry (14.7%), and residents who report Irish roots (12.4%), and some of the residents are also of English ancestry (7.1%), along with some Polish ancestry residents (2.4%), 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 under 15 minutes commuting one-way to work (56.5% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.
Here most residents (71.1%) 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 (7.1%) . In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.