Grand Rapids, MI (Roosevelt Park South)

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 Roosevelt Park South neighborhood in Grand Rapids are lower-middle income, making it a below average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 80.9% of U.S. neighborhoods. With 22.2% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 72.0% 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 Roosevelt Park South neighborhood, 54.3% of the working population is employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations, with 15.2% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (13.3%), and 11.3% in executive, management, and professional occupations.

Languages

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 Roosevelt Park South neighborhood is Spanish, spoken by 61.4% of households. Other important languages spoken here include English and African languages.

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 Roosevelt Park South neighborhood in Grand Rapids, MI, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Mexican (51.5%). There are also a number of people of Swedish ancestry (5.0%), and residents who report German roots (3.5%), and some of the residents are also of Sub-Saharan African ancestry (3.4%), along with some Dominican ancestry residents (2.9%), among others. In addition, 31.5% of the residents of this neighborhood were born in another country.

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 Roosevelt Park South neighborhood spend under 15 minutes commuting one-way to work (39.2% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.

Here most residents (60.4%) 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 (19.9%) and 13.6% of residents also ride the bus 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.