Willow is a very small town located in the state of Alaska. With a population of 2,196 people and just one neighborhood, Willow is the 34th largest community in Alaska.
Willow is a blue-collar town, with 35.46% of people working in blue-collar occupations, while the average in America is just 27.7%. Overall, Willow is a town of sales and office workers, construction workers and builders, and managers. There are especially a lot of people living in Willow who work in management occupations (12.94%), office and administrative support (12.62%), and sales jobs (9.42%).
Telecommuters are a relatively large percentage of the workforce: 8.21% 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.
Another notable thing is that Willow is an extremely popular vacation destination. A significant portion of the population is seasonal. During the vacation season, the town experiences a large influx of people who take up residence in second homes they own in the area. As the vacation season ends, the population drops again, leaving behind a substantially quieter and smaller town.
Because of many things, Willow is a great place for families with children to consider. First of all, many other families with children live here, making Willow a place where both parents and children are more likely to develop social ties with other families, as well as find family-oriented services and community. The town’s good public school district and large population of college-educated adults provide an environment conducive to academic values. With regard to real estate, Willow has a high rate of owner-occupied single family homes, which tends to reflect stability in the local community. Finally, Willow’s overall crime rate is lower than average for the country.
The town 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, Willow has relatively fewer families with younger children, and/or college students. Combined, this makes Willow a pretty quiet place to live overall. If you like quiet, you will probably enjoy it here.
In Willow, however, the average commute to work is quite long. On average, people spend 41.92 minutes each day getting to work, which is significantly higher than the national average.
Being a small town, Willow does not have a public transit system used by locals to get to and from work.
The education level of Willow citizens is a little higher than the average for US cities and towns: 21.72% of adults in Willow have at least a bachelor's degree.
The per capita income in Willow in 2022 was $35,847, which is lower middle income relative to Alaska, and upper middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $143,388 for a family of four. However, Willow contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
Willow is a somewhat ethnically-diverse town. The people who call Willow home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Willow residents report their race to be White, followed by Native American. Important ancestries of people in Willow include German, Irish, English, Swedish, and Norwegian.
The most common language spoken in Willow is English. Other important languages spoken here include Italian and Spanish.
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.
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. 22.0% 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 99.7% of all neighborhoods in America.
Vacant homes and apartments are a significant characteristic of this neighborhood. In fact, with 53.9% of the residential real estate vacant, the neighborhood claims the distinction of having a higher vacancy rate than 99.0% of the neighborhoods in America. This can either be because much of the property is seasonally occupied, like in many vacation areas, or that much of the real estate is more permanently abandoned.
In addition, unpopulated, and rural, the neighborhood is one of the least crowded neighborhoods in all of America. If you like open space, no traffic, and lots of room, this neighborhood may be just what you are looking for. According to NeighborhoodScout's leading research, this neighborhood is less densely populated than 98.7% of the neighborhoods in 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.
Furthermore, the neighborhood has earned the amazing distinction of having one of the highest rates of detached, single-family homes of any neighborhood in the U.S. With 97.4% of the residential real estate here made up of free-standing single-family homes, there is a greater proportion of single-family homes here than in 95.3% of all neighborhoods in America.
If you're looking for a great spot to raise a family, then look no further than the neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's analysis found that the combination of good quality public schools, above-average safety from crime, and a high rate of home ownership in predominantly single-family homes, help make this neighborhood among the top 10.7% of family-friendly neighborhoods across the state of Alaska. In addition, there are a high proportion of other families with school-aged children living here, making it easy for parents and their children to socialize and develop a sense of community support. In addition, families here highly value education, as is reflected by the strength of the local schools, in part due to the educational attainment of the parents here, who vote in support of the public schools.
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Native American and Swedish ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 4.6% of this neighborhood's residents have Native American ancestry and 4.9% have Swedish ancestry.
is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 1.5% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Native American languages at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 98.6% 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 Willow are middle-income, making it a moderate income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 48.6% of the neighborhoods in America. With 19.6% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 68.1% 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 neighborhood, 33.6% 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 29.8% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (23.0%), and 11.2% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
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 91.9% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Italian and Spanish.
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 Willow, AK, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (14.5%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (11.9%), and residents who report English roots (7.3%), and some of the residents are also of Norwegian ancestry (5.0%), along with some Swedish ancestry residents (4.9%), 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 45 minutes and one hour commuting one-way to work (31.2% of working residents), longer and tougher than most commutes in America.
Here most residents (71.3%) 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 (18.1%) . In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.