Mackinac Island is a tiny city located in the state of Michigan. With a population of 592 people and just one neighborhood, Mackinac Island is the 546th largest community in Michigan. Mackinac Island has a large stock of pre-World War II architecture, making it one of the older and more historic cities in the country.
Mackinac Island real estate is some of the most expensive in Michigan, although Mackinac Island house values don't compare to the most expensive real estate in the U.S.
Unlike some cities where white-collar or blue-collar occupations dominate the local economy, Mackinac Island is neither predominantly one nor the other. Instead, it has a mixed workforce of both white- and blue-collar jobs. Overall, Mackinac Island is a city of professionals, managers, and construction workers and builders. There are especially a lot of people living in Mackinac Island who work in management occupations (21.67%), community and social services (20.24%), and sales jobs (10.95%).
One interesting thing about the economy is that relatively large numbers of people worked from their home: 8.19% of the workforce. While this number may seem small overall, as a fraction of the total workforce this is high compared to the rest of the county. 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 Mackinac Island is an extremely popular vacation destination. A significant portion of the population is seasonal. During the vacation season, the city 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 city.
For a small city, there is also a high proportion of single, often educated, people living in Mackinac Island. This is not typical for smaller communities in America, and adds a feeling of vibrancy to Mackinac Island.
Residents of the city have the good fortune of having one of the shortest daily commutes compared to the rest of the country. On average, they spend only 17.24 minutes getting to work every day.
In Mackinac Island, a lot of people use the bus to get to work every day though Mackinac Island is a relatively small city. Those that ride the bus are primarily traveling out of town to good jobs in other cities.
The citizens of Mackinac Island are very well educated compared to the average community in the nation: 38.10% of adults in Mackinac Island have a bachelor's degree or even advanced degree.
The per capita income in Mackinac Island in 2022 was $46,601, which is wealthy relative to Michigan, and upper middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $186,404 for a family of four. However, Mackinac Island contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
Mackinac Island is an extremely ethnically-diverse city. The people who call Mackinac Island home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Mackinac Island residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Mackinac Island also has a sizeable Hispanic population (people of Hispanic origin can be of any race). People of Hispanic or Latino origin account for 11.92% of the city’s residents. Important ancestries of people in Mackinac Island include Irish, English, German, Polish, and European.
The most common language spoken in Mackinac Island is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Serbo-Croatian.
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.
If your dream is to be able to ride your bike to work each day, look no further than this unique neighborhood. With 8.7% of residents in the neighborhood commuting on a bicycle to and from work daily, this neighborhood has more bicycle commuters than 99.5% of all neighborhoods in the U.S., according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis.
Also, in the neighborhood, walking to work is a real option for many. In fact, NeighborhoodScout's exclusive research reveals walking to and from work is the chosen way to commute for 11.1% of residents here. This is a higher proportion of walking commuters than we found in 95.5% of American neighborhoods. Get ready to put on your walking shoes if you move here!
Despite all of the residential real estate here in the neighborhood, NeighborhoodScout has discovered that much of it is vacant. In resort or second-home vacation areas, this naturally occurs because homes and apartments are seasonally occupied, and empty for a portion of the year. In non-vacation or resort areas, however, this can be an indicator of property abandonment or a weak real estate market. The vacancy rate here is 46.7%, which is higher than 98.5% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
In addition, 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 28 people per square mile living here, this neighborhood is less crowded than 93.1% of America.
Regardless of the means by which residents commute, this neighborhood has a length of commute that is notable. Residents of the neighborhood have the pleasure of having one of the shortest commutes to work of any neighborhood in America. 68.6% of the residents have a commute time from home to work (one way) of less than fifteen minutes. This is a higher proportion of residents enjoying a short trip to work than NeighborhoodScout found in 98.3% of U.S. neighborhoods. Less time commuting means more time for other things in life.
We Americans love our cars. Not only are they a necessity for most Americans due to the shape of our neighborhoods and the distances between where we live, work, shop, and go to school, but we also fancy them. As a result, most households in America have one, two, or three cars. But NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis shows that the neighborhood has a highly unusual pattern of car ownership. 19.7% of the households in this neighborhood don't own a car at all. This is more carless households than NeighborhoodScout found in 95.1% of U.S. neighborhoods.
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Native American and Finnish ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 19.6% of this neighborhood's residents have Native American ancestry and 1.6% have Finnish 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 98.5% of the neighborhoods in America.
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 neighborhood in Mackinac Island are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 64.0% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 28.3% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 80.0% of U.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, 45.4% 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 23.4% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations (22.2%), and 9.0% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 94.3% of households. Some people also speak Spanish (3.2%).
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 Mackinac Island, MI, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (20.6%). There are also a number of people of Native American ancestry (19.6%), and residents who report Irish roots (10.7%), and some of the residents are also of English ancestry (10.6%), along with some French ancestry residents (7.6%), 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 under 15 minutes commuting one-way to work (68.6% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.
Here most residents (55.9%) 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 (14.1%) and 11.1% of residents also hop out the door and walk to work 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.