Adak is a tiny coastal city (i.e. on the ocean, a bay, or inlet) located in the state of Alaska. With a population of 154 people and just one neighborhood, Adak is the 64th largest community in Alaska.
When you are in Adak, you'll notice that it is more blue-collar than most other communities in America. 37.31% of Adak’s employed work in blue-collar jobs, while America averages only 27.7% that do. Overall, Adak is a city of sales and office workers, service providers, and transportation and shipping workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Adak who work in office and administrative support (23.32%), food service (10.88%), and management occupations (9.84%).
Another notable thing is that Adak is an extremely popular destination for tourists and seasonal residents. So much of the population is seasonal such that the city’s population swells significantly during the vacation season, and drops again when the season ends. Because of this, much of the local economy is centered around tourism; some businesses may be operated only during the high season. During the low season, year-round residents will notice that the city is a substantially quieter place to live.
The overall crime rate in Adak is one of the lowest in the US. This makes it one of the safer places to live in the country in terms of crime.
The city 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, Adak has relatively fewer families with younger children, and/or college students. Combined, this makes Adak a pretty quiet place to live overall. If you like quiet, you will probably enjoy it here.
One of the nice things about Adak is that it is nautical, which means that parts of it are somewhat historic and touch the ocean or tidal bodies of water, such as inlets and bays. Because of this, visitors and locals will often go to these areas to take in the scenery or to enjoy waterfront activities.
Compared to the rest of the country, citizens of Adak spend much less time in their cars: on average, their commute to work is only 7.50 minutes. This also means that noise and pollution levels in the city are less than they would otherwise be.
Even though Adak is a smaller city, it has many people who hop on public transportation – mostly the bus for their daily commute to work. Typically, these people are commuting to good jobs in the surrounding cities.
The citizens of Adak have a very low rate of college education: just 7.37% of people over 25 have a bachelor's degree or advanced degree, compared to a national average of 21.84% for all cities.
The per capita income in Adak in 2022 was $57,458, which is wealthy relative to Alaska and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $229,832 for a family of four. However, Adak contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
Adak is an extremely ethnically-diverse city. The people who call Adak home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Adak residents report their race to be White, followed by Asian. Adak also has a sizeable Hispanic population (people of Hispanic origin can be of any race). People of Hispanic or Latino origin account for 14.52% of the city’s residents. Important ancestries of people in Adak include Italian, German, Swedish, Scottish, and Irish.
Adak also has a high percentage of its population that was born in another country: 28.23%.
The most common language spoken in Adak is English. Other important languages spoken here include Tagalog and Native American languages.
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
Uncrowded roads, rural America and space to be the individual you are. If you like these characteristics, this neighborhood may fit you. With just 0 residents per square mile, is less crowded than 99.6% of all U.S. neighborhoods. Do you like a coastal setting? If so, this neighborhood may be to your liking. The neighborhood is on the ocean, a bay, or inlet. Often such coastal places have amenities and recreational activities on the waterfront that are attractive to residents and visitors alike. In addition to being coastal, is a very nautical neighborhood, meaning that it is somewhat historic, walkable, densely populated and on the water. This gives the neighborhood a very nautical feel, with some seaside and shipping feel, which some may really enjoy the sights and sounds of.
In addition, 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 62.3%, which is higher than 99.5% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
Furthermore, three-deckers, duplexes, old Victorian homes cut up into apartments. Independent stores on the corner selling pizza. These are some of the hallmarks of neighborhoods with lots of small 2, 3, and 4 unit apartment buildings. The neighborhood really stands out in this regard, however, as it is dominated by such small apartment buildings more than nearly any other neighborhood in America. This is a stunning visual and lifestyle example of this type of neighborhood. In fact, 62.3% of the real estate here are small 2, 3, or 4 unit apartment buildings, which is a higher proportion than found in 99.4% of America's neighborhoods.
Length of Commute
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. Residents of the neighborhood have the pleasure of having one of the shortest commutes to work of any neighborhood in America. 95.2% 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 99.9% of U.S. neighborhoods. Less time commuting means more time for other things in life.
Occupations
The neighborhood has a greater proportion of government workers living in it than 99.8% of the neighborhoods in America, according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis. This is a unique feature of this neighborhood, and one that shapes its character.
Furthermore, with 3.6% of employed workers living in the neighborhood active in the military, this neighborhood has the distinction of having a higher proportion of people in the military than 98.1% of American neighborhoods. This is a major shaper of the neighborhood's culture and character.
Modes of Transportation
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 30.0% of residents here. This is a higher proportion of walking commuters than we found in 99.1% of American neighborhoods. Get ready to put on your walking shoes if you move here!
Also, if your dream is to be able to ride your bike to work each day, look no further than this unique neighborhood. With 4.6% of residents in the neighborhood commuting on a bicycle to and from work daily, this neighborhood has more bicycle commuters than 97.8% of all neighborhoods in the U.S., according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis.
Finally, more people ride the bus in this neighborhood each day to get to work than 95.5% of U.S. neighborhoods.
Car Ownership
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. 21.4% of the households in this neighborhood don't own a car at all. This is more carless households than NeighborhoodScout found in 95.6% of U.S. neighborhoods.
Diversity
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Native American and Russian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 40.4% of this neighborhood's residents have Native American ancestry and 4.3% have Russian ancestry.
is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 13.5% 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 99.8% 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 Adak are upper-middle income, making it an above average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 63.3% of the neighborhoods in America. With 10.9% of the children here below the federal poverty line, this neighborhood has a higher rate of childhood poverty than 51.3% 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, 37.6% of the working population is employed in manufacturing and laborer occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is government jobs, whether they are in local, state, or federal positions, with 28.7% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in executive, management, and professional occupations (28.4%), and 21.2% in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants.
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 neighborhood is English, spoken by 77.3% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Native American languages, Tagalog (the first language of the Philippine region) and Spanish.
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 Adak, AK, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Native American (40.4%). There are also a number of people of Mexican ancestry (10.9%), and residents who report Asian roots (7.5%), and some of the residents are also of Italian ancestry (5.4%), along with some German ancestry residents (5.2%), 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 (95.2% of working residents), one of the shortest commutes across America.
Here most residents (30.4%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In addition, quite a number also hop out the door and walk to work to get to work (30.0%) and 18.3% of residents also carpool with coworkers, friends, or neighbors 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.
