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. New Bedford has an unusually large stock of pre-World War II architecture, making it one of the older and more historic cities in the country.

New Bedford is a blue-collar town, with 35.9% of people working in blue-collar occupations, while the average in America is just 24.7%. 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%).

One of the nice things about New Bedford is that is it nautical, meaning that parts of the city are somewhat historic and on the ocean, or touch tidal bodies of water, such as inlets and tidal rivers. Because of this, visitors and locals will often go to these areas to take in the scenery or to enjoy 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.

Foreign born people are also an important part of New Bedford's cultural character, accounting for 19.61% of the city's population.

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