New Bedford is a larger medium-sized coastal city (ie. on the ocean or tidally-influenced rivers) located in the state of Massachusetts. With a population of 93,768 people and 31 constituent neighborhoods, New Bedford is the seventh largest community in Massachusetts. Much of the housing stock in New Bedford was built prior to World War II, making it one of the older and more historic cities in the country.

When you are in New Bedford, you'll notice that it is more blue-collar than most other communities in America. 35.9% of New Bedford's employed work in blue-collar jobs, while America averages only 24.7% that do. Overall, New Bedford is a city of sales and office workers, service providers, and production and manufacturing workers. There are especially a lot of people living in New Bedford who work in office and administrative support jobs (14.29%), sales jobs (9.27%), and food service (6.14%).

The city is also nautical, which means that parts of New Bedford are somewhat historic and touch the ocean or tidal bodies of water, such as inlets and tidal rivers. Quite often, nautical areas such as these attract visitors and locals who come to enjoy the scenery and various waterfront activities.

For the size of the city, public transportation in New Bedford is quite heavily used. Mostly, people who use it for their daily commute are taking the bus. For New Bedford, the benefits are reduced air pollution and congestion on the highways.

New Bedford Information and Demographics

The rate of college-level education in New Bedford is quite a bit lower than the national average among all cities of 14.96%: just 10.72% of people here over 25 have a bachelor's degree or an advanced degree.

The per capita income in New Bedford in 2000 was $15,602, which is low income relative to Massachusetts, and lower middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $62,408 for a family of four.

New Bedford is a very ethnically-diverse city. The people who call New Bedford home come from a variety of different races and ancestries. The most prevalent race in New Bedford is White, followed by African-American. New Bedford also has a sizeable Hispanic population (people of Hispanic origin can be of any race). People of Hispanic or Latino origin account for 10.08% of the city's residents. Important ancestries of people in New Bedford include Portuguese, Cape Verdean, French, French Canadian, English, Irish, and Polish.

In addition, New Bedford has a lot of people living here who were born outside of the US (19.61%).

The most common language spoken in New Bedford is English. Other important languages spoken here include Portuguese and Spanish.