About Bedford

Bedford is a somewhat small town located in the state of New York. With a population of 5,616 people and just one neighborhood, Bedford is the 346th largest community in New York.

Bedford is a decidedly white-collar town, with fully 94.18% of the workforce employed in white-collar jobs, well above the national average. Overall, Bedford is a town of managers, professionals, and sales and office workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Bedford who work in management occupations (22.06%), sales jobs (17.56%), and business and financial occupations (8.89%).

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

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

One interesting thing about the economy is that relatively large numbers of people worked from their homes - 8.95% 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, Bedford is home to many people who could be described as "urban sophisticates," which are people who are not only wealthy and employed in professional occupations, but highly educated to boot. Urban sophisticates have urbane tastes - whether they reside in a big or small city, a suburb, or a little town. Urban sophisticates support bookstores, quality clothing stores, enjoy luxury travel, and in big cities, they are truly the patrons of the arts, attending and supporting institutions such as opera, symphony, ballet, and theatre.

Because of many things, Bedford 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, Bedford really has some of the features that families look for when choosing a good community to raise children. Is Bedford 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 Bedford is that it can take a long time to commute to work. In Bedford, the average commute to work is 39.48 minutes, which is quite a bit higher than the national average.

Bedford is a small town, and as such doesn't have a public transit system that people use to get to and from their jobs every day.

Bedford Information and Demographics

Do you have a 4-year college degree or graduate degree? If so, you may feel right at home in Bedford. 70.32% of adults here have a 4-year degree or graduate degree, whereas the national average for all cities and towns is just 14.96%.

The per capita income in Bedford in 2000 was $75,723, which is wealthy relative to New York and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $302,892 for a family of four. However, Bedford contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.

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

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