Jersey City is a relatively large coastal city (ie. on the ocean or tidally-influenced rivers) located in the state of New Jersey. With a population of 240,055 people and 67 constituent neighborhoods, Jersey City is the second largest community in New Jersey. Much of the housing stock in Jersey City was built prior to World War II, making it one of the older and more historic cities in the country.

Unlike some cities, Jersey City isn't mainly white- or blue-collar. Instead, the most prevalent occupations for people in Jersey City are a mix of both white- and blue-collar jobs. Overall, Jersey City is a city of sales and office workers, professionals, and service providers. There are especially a lot of people living in Jersey City who work in office and administrative support jobs (19.94%), sales jobs (10.51%), and management occupations (6.91%).

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

The city is also nautical, which means that parts of Jersey City are somewhat historic and bounded by the ocean or tidal bodies of water, such as inlets and tidal rivers. Such areas are often places that visitors and locals go for waterfront activities or taking in the scenery.

In Jersey City, however, the average commute to work is quite long. On average, people spend 33.82 minutes each day getting to work, which is significantly higher than the national average. One bright side is that local public transit is widely used, so it may be an option to avoid the headache of driving in the heavy traffic by leaving the car at home and taking transit. In addition, the city is also quite pedestrian-friendly, because many neighborhoods are very dense and have amenities close enough together that people find it feasible to get around on foot.

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

Jersey City Information and Demographics

In terms of college education, Jersey City is substantially better educated than the typical community in the nation, which has 14.96% of the adults holding a bachelor's degree or graduate degree: 27.45% of adults in Jersey City have a college degree.

The per capita income in Jersey City in 2000 was $19,410, which is low income relative to New Jersey, and upper middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $77,640 for a family of four.

Jersey City is an extremely ethnically-diverse city. The people who call Jersey City home come from a variety of different races and ancestries. The most prevalent race in Jersey City is White, followed by African-American. Jersey City also has a sizeable Hispanic population (people of Hispanic origin can be of any race). People of Hispanic or Latino origin account for 28.34% of the city's residents. Important ancestries of people in Jersey City include Italian, Irish, and Polish.

Foreign born people are also an important part of Jersey City's cultural character, accounting for 33.97% of the city's population.

The languages spoken by people in Jersey City are also diverse. These are tabulated as the languages people preferentially speak when they are at home with their families. The most common language spoken in Jersey City is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish, Tagalog, Arabic, and Gujarathi.