Ridgefield is a medium-sized town located in the state of Connecticut. With a population of 23,643 people and six constituent neighborhoods, Ridgefield is the 43rd largest community in Connecticut.

Ridgefield is a decidedly white-collar town, with fully 93.54% of the workforce employed in white-collar jobs, well above the national average. Overall, Ridgefield is a town of managers, professionals, and sales and office workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Ridgefield who work in management occupations (23.96%), sales jobs (12.70%), and business and financial occupations (11.53%).

Also of interest is that Ridgefield has more people living here who work in computers and math than 95% of the places in the US.

Of important note, Ridgefield is also a town of artists. Ridgefield has more artists, designers and people working in media than 90% of the communities in America. This concentration of artists helps shape Ridgefield's character.

One interesting thing about the economy is that relatively large numbers of people worked from their homes - 8.14% of the workforce. While this number may seem small overall, as a fraction of the total workforce this is high compared to the rest of the county. 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.

In addition, Ridgefield is home to many people who could be described as "urban sophisticates." Urban sophisticates are educated, wealthy, executives and professionals, who have urbane tastes in books, food, and travel, whether they actually live in a big city, or choose to reside in a small town. In big or medium-sized cities, urban sophisticates tend to frequent art institutions such as opera, symphonies, ballet, live theatre, and museums.

Because of many things, Ridgefield is a very good place for families to consider. With an enviable combination of good schools, low crime, college-educated neighbors who tend to support education because of their own experiences, and a high rate of home ownership in predominantly single-family properties, Ridgefield really has some of the features that families look for when choosing a good community to raise children. Is Ridgefield perfect? Of course not, and if you like frenetic night life, it will be far from your cup of tea. But overall this is a solid community, with many things to recommend it as a family-friendly place to live.

One downside of living in Ridgefield, however, is that residents on average have to contend with a long commute, spending on average 35.36 minutes every day commuting to work.

For their daily commute to and from work, many people in Ridgefield choose to take public transit. Most of these commuters are using the train.

Ridgefield Information and Demographics

If knowledge is power, Ridgefield is a pretty powerful place. 65.89% of the adults in Ridgefield have earned a 4-year college degree, masters degree, MD, law degree, or even PhD. Compare that to the national average of 14.96% for all cities and towns.

The per capita income in Ridgefield in 2000 was $51,795, which is wealthy relative to Connecticut and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $207,180 for a family of four. However, Ridgefield contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.

The people who call Ridgefield home come from a variety of different races and ancestries. The most prevalent race in Ridgefield is White, followed by Asian. Important ancestries of people in Ridgefield include Italian, Irish, German, English, Polish, and Russian.

The most common language spoken in Ridgefield is English.