Gaines is a tiny village located in the state of Michigan. With a population of 374 people and just one neighborhood, Gaines is the 597th largest community in Michigan. Gaines has a large stock of pre-World War II architecture, making it one of the older and more historic villages in the country.
Unlike some villages, Gaines isn’t mainly white- or blue-collar. Instead, the most prevalent occupations for people in Gaines are a mix of both white- and blue-collar jobs. Overall, Gaines is a village of sales and office workers, service providers, and construction workers and builders. There are especially a lot of people living in Gaines who work in office and administrative support (25.00%), sales jobs (11.17%), and maintenance occupations (6.38%).
A relatively large number of people in Gaines telecommute to their jobs. Overall, about 7.98% of the workforce works from home. While this may seem like a small number, as a fraction of the total workforce it ranks among the highest in the country. 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.
The overall crime rate in Gaines 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.
One downside of living in Gaines, however, is that residents on average have to contend with a long commute, spending on average 33.08 minutes every day commuting to work.
Being a small village, Gaines does not have a public transit system used by locals to get to and from work.
The percentage of people in Gaines with college degrees is quite a bit lower than the national average for cities and towns of 21.84%: just 10.96% of people over 25 have a bachelor's degree or advanced degree.
The per capita income in Gaines in 2022 was $29,721, which is middle income relative to Michigan and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $118,884 for a family of four. However, Gaines contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
The people who call Gaines home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Gaines residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Important ancestries of people in Gaines include German, French Canadian, Irish, English, and Polish.
The most common language spoken in Gaines is English. Other important languages spoken here include Polish and Italian.
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.
Owner-occupied real estate dominates the neighborhood. In fact, according to NeighborhoodScout research, the percentage of residential real estate occupied by its owner is higher here than in 95.9% of neighborhoods in America.
The neighborhood is a great option for families, as revealed by NeighborhoodScout's research on this neighborhood. The combination of top public schools, low crime rates, and owner-occupied single family homes, make this neighborhood among the top 9.9% of family-friendly neighborhoods in the state of Michigan. Many other families also live here, making it easy to socialize and develop a sense of community. In addition, families here highly value education, as is reflected by the strength of the local schools.
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 96.0% 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.
Did you know that the neighborhood has more French Canadian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 2.8% of this neighborhood's residents have French Canadian 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 Gaines are upper-middle income, making it an above average income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 66.0% of the neighborhoods in America. In addition, 2.4% 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 73.5% of America'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, 35.8% of the working population is employed in executive, management, and professional occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is manufacturing and laborer occupations, with 28.6% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations (20.8%), and 14.7% in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants.
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 96.0% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Polish, Spanish and Italian.
Culture is the shared learned behavior of peoples. Undeniably, different ethnicities and ancestries have different cultural traditions, and as a result, neighborhoods with concentrations of residents of one or another ethnicities or ancestries will express those cultures. It is what makes the North End in Boston so fun to visit for the Italian restaurants, bakeries, culture, and charm, and similarly, why people enjoy visiting Chinatown in San Francisco.
In the neighborhood in Gaines, MI, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as German (27.5%). There are also a number of people of Irish ancestry (17.8%), and residents who report English roots (11.7%), and some of the residents are also of Polish ancestry (6.0%), along with some Mexican ancestry residents (3.3%), 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 (41.9% of working residents), which is shorter than the time spent commuting to work for most Americans.
Here most residents (87.8%) 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 (6.9%) . In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.