Saugatuck is a tiny city located in the state of Michigan. With a population of 437 people and just one neighborhood, Saugatuck is the 504th largest community in Michigan.
Saugatuck home prices are not only among the most expensive in Michigan, but Saugatuck real estate also consistently ranks among the most expensive in America.
Unlike some cities, Saugatuck isn’t mainly white- or blue-collar. Instead, the most prevalent occupations for people in Saugatuck are a mix of both white- and blue-collar jobs. Overall, Saugatuck is a city of managers, professionals, and sales and office workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Saugatuck who work in management occupations (23.30%), sales jobs (11.50%), and business and financial occupations (11.50%).
Telecommuters are a relatively large percentage of the workforce: 21.53% 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 Saugatuck 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.
In addition, Saugatuck is home to many people who could be described as "urban sophisticates", which are people who are not only wealthy and employed in professional occupations, but highly educated to boot. Urban sophisticates have urbane tastes - whether they reside in a big or small city, a suburb, or a little town. Urban sophisticates support bookstores, quality clothing stores, enjoy luxury travel, and in big cities, they are truly the patrons of the arts, attending and supporting institutions such as opera, symphony, ballet, and theatre.
It is a fairly quiet city 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!) Saugatuck 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. Saugatuck has few renters and college students. But the biggest reason it is quieter in Saugatuck than in most places in America, is that there are just simply fewer people living here. If you think trees make good neighbors, Saugatuck may be for you.
One downside of living in Saugatuck, however, is that residents on average have to contend with a long commute, spending on average 33.77 minutes every day commuting to work.
If knowledge is power, Saugatuck is a pretty powerful place. 73.25% of the adults in Saugatuck have earned a 4-year college degree, masters degree, MD, law degree, or even PhD. Compare that to the national average of 21.84% for all cities and towns.
The per capita income in Saugatuck in 2022 was $78,256, which is wealthy relative to Michigan and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $313,024 for a family of four. However, Saugatuck contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
The people who call Saugatuck home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Saugatuck residents report their race to be White, followed by Native American. Important ancestries of people in Saugatuck include Irish, German, European, English, and British.
The most common language spoken in Saugatuck is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and German/Yiddish.
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.
A majority of the adults in the neighborhood are wealthy and educated executives. They own stately homes that tend to maintain high real estate appreciation rates. Their upper-level careers keep them busy, but allow them to live comfortably. If you're an executive and want to keep similar company, consider settling in this neighborhood, rated as an executive lifestyle "best choice" neighborhood for Michigan by NeighborhoodScout's analysis, which rated it as better for executive lifestyles than 99.3% of the neighborhoods in Michigan. In addition to being an excellent choice for highly educated executives, this neighborhood is also a very good choice for active retirees and urban sophisticates.
In addition, with more than 1.8% of residents living with a same sex partner, is truly a neighborhood that stands out from the rest in this regard. In fact, exclusive analysis by NeighborhoodScout reveals that this neighborhood has a greater concentration of same sex couples than 96.0% of U.S. neighborhoods.
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 48.2%, which is higher than 98.5% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
Regardless of the means by which residents commute, this neighborhood has a length of commute that is notable. 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. 10.0% 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 95.5% of all neighborhoods in America.
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Dutch and British ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 11.3% of this neighborhood's residents have Dutch ancestry and 3.3% have British 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 Saugatuck are upper-middle income, making it an above average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 83.1% of the neighborhoods in America. In addition, 4.0% 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 67.9% of America'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, 60.2% 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 21.5% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations (13.3%), and 4.9% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 98.2% of households.
Boston's Beacon Hill blue-blood streets, Brooklyn's Orthodox Jewish enclaves, Los Angeles' Persian neighborhoods. Each has its own culture derived primarily from the ancestries and culture of the residents who call these neighborhoods home. Likewise, each neighborhood in America has its own culture – some more unique than others – based on lifestyle, occupations, the types of households – and importantly – on the ethnicities and ancestries of the people who live in the neighborhood. Understanding where people came from, who their grandparents or great-grandparents were, can help you understand how a neighborhood is today.
In the neighborhood in Saugatuck, MI, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (20.1%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (14.3%), and residents who report English roots (12.7%), and some of the residents are also of Dutch ancestry (11.3%), along with some Italian ancestry residents (5.8%), 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 between 15 and 30 minutes commuting one-way to work (38.7% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans. However, there is also a significant group of residents (10.0%) who commute over an hour in each direction.
Here most residents (76.6%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.