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 158 people and just one neighborhood, Adak is the 64th largest community in Alaska.
Because occupations involving physical labor dominate the local economy, Adak is generally considered to be a blue-collar town. 37.31% of the Adak workforce is employed in blue-collar occupations, compared to the national average of 27.7%. 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 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.
Adak’s overall crime rate ranks among the lowest in the nation, making it a very safe place to live.
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!) Adak 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. Adak has few renters and college students. But the biggest reason it is quieter in Adak than in most places in America, is that there are just simply fewer people living here. If you think trees make good neighbors, Adak may be for you.
Adak is also nautical, which means that parts of it are somewhat historic and touch the ocean or tidal bodies of water, such as inlets and bays. Such areas are often places that visitors and locals go for waterfront activities or taking in the scenery.
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 7.50 minutes getting to work every day.
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 population of Adak has a very low overall level of education: only 7.37% of people over 25 hold a 4-year college degree or higher.
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.
Foreign born people are also an important part of Adak's cultural character, accounting for 28.23% of the city’s population.
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
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 0 people per square mile living here, this neighborhood is less crowded than 99.6% of America. 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, corner bodegas, stores on the first floor and apartments above, former grand Victorian residences converted into apartments, three-deckers built shoulder-to-shoulder, duplexes. Such building types define the real estate of neighborhoods dominated by small 2, 3, and 4 unit apartment buildings. Many are in older core neighborhoods of Eastern and Midwestern cities, or historic town centers in their hinterlands. If you wax romantic about the look and feel of such neighborhoods, with fresh pizza, falafel and an independent florist at the corner, then you might find the neighborhood worth a close look. This neighborhood is an absolutely outstanding example of the dominance of small 2, 3, and 4 unit apartment buildings compared to neighborhoods across the nation, as they make up a substantial portion of this neighborhood's real estate stock. In fact, no less than 62.3% of the real estate here is made up of such dwellings, which is higher than 99.4% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
Length of Commute
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. 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, the neighborhood stands out nationally for having a greater proportion of its residents active in the military than 98.1% of other U.S. neighborhoods. If you come here, you will notice military people active in their jobs, going to and from work, and in plain clothes out and about the neighborhood.
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, would you like to be able to ride your bike to work? If you are attracted to the idea of getting a little exercise of the two-wheeled type while reducing your carbon footprint, bicycling to work might be the answer. But which neighborhood you live in can make this either impossible, or alternatively, a great and realistic option. NeighborhoodScout's analysis revealed that the neighborhood is a fantastic option for bicycle commuters, as 4.6% of commuters here do ride their bikes to and from work on a daily basis. This is a higher amount than we found in 97.8% of the neighborhoods in America.
Finally, our research revealed that more commuters here take the bus to work (11.2% ride the bus) than 95.5% of all American neighborhoods. If you like the idea of leaving your car and home and hopping the bus to work, this might be a good neighborhood for you to consider.
Car Ownership
American households most often have a car, and regularly they have two or three. But households in the neighborhood buck this trend. 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.
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 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.
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, 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
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 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.
