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Otter Lake, MI

This is a small community in a single neighborhood. As throughout the site, some neighborhood-level data are reserved for subscribers.





Overview


Otter Lake is a tiny village located in the state of Michigan. With a population of 359 people and just one neighborhood, Otter Lake is the 581st largest community in Michigan. Much of the housing stock in Otter Lake was built prior to World War II, making it one of the older and more historic villages in the country.

Occupations and Workforce

When you are in Otter Lake, you'll notice that it is more blue-collar than most other communities in America. 37.29% of Otter Lake’s employed work in blue-collar jobs, while America averages only 27.7% that do. Overall, Otter Lake is a village of sales and office workers, production and manufacturing workers, and service providers. There are especially a lot of people living in Otter Lake who work in sales jobs (19.21%), office and administrative support (12.43%), and teaching (6.78%).

Telecommuters are a relatively large percentage of the workforce: 8.88% 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.

Setting & Lifestyle

It is a fairly quiet village because there are relatively few of those groups of people who have a tendency to be noisy. (Children, for example, often can't help themselves from being noisy, and being parents ourselves, we know!) Otter Lake has relatively few families with children living at home, and is quieter because of it. Renters and college students, for their own reasons, can also be noisy. Otter Lake has few renters and college students. But the biggest reason it is quieter in Otter Lake than in most places in America, is that there are just simply fewer people living here. If you think trees make good neighbors, Otter Lake may be for you.

One downside of living in Otter Lake is that it can take a long time to commute to work. In Otter Lake, the average commute to work is 34.12 minutes, which is quite a bit higher than the national average.

As is often the case in a small village, Otter Lake doesn't have a public transportation system that people use for their commute.

Demographics

The rate of college-level education in Otter Lake is quite a bit lower than the national average among all cities of 21.84%: just 10.27% of people here over 25 have a bachelor's degree or an advanced degree.

The per capita income in Otter Lake in 2022 was $28,580, which is middle income relative to Michigan, and lower middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $114,320 for a family of four. However, Otter Lake contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.

The people who call Otter Lake home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Otter Lake residents report their race to be White. Important ancestries of people in Otter Lake include German, Irish, English, Polish, and Italian.

The most common language spoken in Otter Lake is English. Other important languages spoken here include Polish and Italian.

Notable & Unique Neighborhood Characteristics

The way a neighborhood looks and feels when you walk or drive around it, from its setting, its buildings, and its flavor, can make all the difference. This neighborhood has some really cool things about the way it looks and feels as revealed by NeighborhoodScout's exclusive research. This might include anything from the housing stock to the types of households living here to how people get around.

Real Estate

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.

Diversity

Did you know that the neighborhood has more Irish and Eastern European ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 25.5% of this neighborhood's residents have Irish ancestry and 1.9% have Eastern European ancestry.

Migration / Stability

Some neighborhoods have more internal cohesiveness than others. While other neighborhoods feel like a collection of strangers who just happen to live near each other. Sometimes this comes down to not only the personalities of the people in a place, but how long people have been together in that neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research has revealed some interesting things about the rootedness of people in the neighborhood. More residents of the neighborhood live here today that also were living in this same neighborhood five years ago than is found in 96.6% of U.S. neighborhoods. This neighborhood is really made up of people who know each other, don't move often, and have lived here in this very neighborhood for quite a while.

The Neighbors

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 Otter Lake are middle-income, making it a moderate income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 40.2% of the neighborhoods in America. In addition, 5.9% 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 61.9% of America's neighborhoods.

A neighborhood is far different if it is dominated by enlisted military personnel rather than people who earn their living by farming. It is also different if most of the neighbors are clerical support or managers. What is wonderful is the sheer diversity of neighborhoods, allowing you to find the type that fits your lifestyle and aspirations.

In the neighborhood, 36.0% 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 28.4% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (24.7%), and 9.9% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.

Languages

The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 98.7% of households. Some people also speak Polish (5.8%).

Ethnicity / Ancestry

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 Otter Lake, MI, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Irish (25.5%). There are also a number of people of German ancestry (21.7%), and residents who report English roots (18.5%), and some of the residents are also of Polish ancestry (6.4%), along with some French ancestry residents (4.7%), among others.

Getting to Work

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 (33.6% of working residents), longer and tougher than most commutes in America.

Here most residents (73.9%) 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 (15.5%) . In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.


Real Estate includes:
Average Home Values
Rental Market
Housing Market Details
Neighborhood Setting
Economics & Demographics include:
Lifestyle & Special Character
Household Types
Commute To Work
Migration & Mobility
Race & Ethnic Diversity
Employment Industries & Occupations
Income & Unemployment Rate
Higher Education Attainment
Crime includes:
Neighborhood Crime Index
Crimes Per Square Mile
Property Crime Comparison
Violent Crime Comparison
Schools include:
School Ratings
Schools In District
Public School Test Scores
School District Enrollment
Educational Expenditures

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