Oakland is a somewhat small borough located in the state of New Jersey. With a population of 12,466 people and three constituent neighborhoods, Oakland is the 168th largest community in New Jersey.

Oakland is a decidedly white-collar borough, with fully 85.28% of the workforce employed in white-collar jobs, well above the national average. Overall, Oakland is a borough of sales and office workers, professionals, and managers. There are especially a lot of people living in Oakland who work in office and administrative support jobs (15.55%), sales jobs (14.35%), and management occupations (13.78%).

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

In addition, Oakland 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, Oakland 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, Oakland really has some of the features that families look for when choosing a good community to raise children. Is Oakland 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 Oakland is that it can take a long time to commute to work. In Oakland, the average commute to work is 30.98 minutes, which is quite a bit higher than the national average.

Despite the fact that Oakland is a relatively small borough, the public transit system is fairly well used to commute to work. Many people choose to use the bus, often traveling to the central city in the region.

Oakland Information and Demographics

The education level of Oakland citizens is very high relative to the national average among all cities (14.96%): 41.39% of adults in Oakland have a bachelor's degree or even advanced degree.

The per capita income in Oakland in 2000 was $35,252, which is upper middle income relative to New Jersey, and wealthy relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $141,008 for a family of four. However, Oakland contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.

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

The most common language spoken in Oakland is English. Some people also speak Spanish.