Holden is a somewhat small town located in the state of Massachusetts. With a population of 15,621 people and four constituent neighborhoods, Holden is the 121st largest community in Massachusetts.

Holden is a decidedly white-collar town, with fully 86.32% of the workforce employed in white-collar jobs, well above the national average. Overall, Holden is a town of professionals, sales and office workers, and managers. There are especially a lot of people living in Holden who work in management occupations (13.25%), office and administrative support jobs (13.19%), and teaching (11.49%).

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

In addition, Holden 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, Holden 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, Holden really has some of the features that families look for when choosing a good community to raise children. Is Holden 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.

Residents of Holden by-and-large get to work each day by driving: 98.2% use their own cars for their daily commute, making it a very car-oriented town. While Holden may be a convenient place for driving around town, the negative aspect of this is that places that are suitable for walking or bicycling to and from work or stores may be few and far between. In general, car-oriented communities emphasize roads and convenience of driving, but not have a lot of walking-friendly areas to get from home to work, and tend not to have a lot of public transportation options.

As is often the case in a small town, Holden doesn't have a public transportation system that people use for their commute.

Holden Information and Demographics

If knowledge is power, Holden is a pretty powerful place. 45.41% of the adults in Holden 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 Holden in 2000 was $27,971, which is upper middle income relative to Massachusetts, and wealthy relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $111,884 for a family of four.

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

The most common language spoken in Holden is English.