Ridgewood is a medium-sized village located in the state of New Jersey. With a population of 24,936 people and five constituent neighborhoods, Ridgewood is the 74th largest community in New Jersey.

Ridgewood is a decidedly white-collar village, with fully 94.14% of the workforce employed in white-collar jobs, well above the national average. Overall, Ridgewood is a village of professionals, managers, and sales and office workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Ridgewood who work in management occupations (18.95%), sales jobs (14.15%), and office and administrative support jobs (11.87%).

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

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

In addition, Ridgewood is home to many people who could be described as "urban sophisticates." Urban sophisticates are educated, wealthy, executives and professionals, who have urbane tastes in books, food, and travel, whether they actually live in a big city, or choose to reside in a small town. In big or medium-sized cities, urban sophisticates tend to frequent art institutions such as opera, symphonies, ballet, live theatre, and museums.

Because of many things, Ridgewood 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, Ridgewood really has some of the features that families look for when choosing a good community to raise children. Is Ridgewood 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 Ridgewood is that it can take a long time to commute to work. In Ridgewood, the average commute to work is 34.57 minutes, which is quite a bit higher than the national average.

Ridgewood Information and Demographics

Do you have a 4-year college degree or graduate degree? If so, you may feel right at home in Ridgewood. 66.75% 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 Ridgewood in 2000 was $51,658, which is wealthy relative to New Jersey and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $206,632 for a family of four. However, Ridgewood contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.

Ridgewood is a somewhat ethnically-diverse village. The people who call Ridgewood home come from a variety of different races and ancestries. The most prevalent race in Ridgewood is White, followed by Asian. Important ancestries of people in Ridgewood include Irish, Italian, German, English, Polish, Russian, and Scottish.

Foreign born people are also an important part of Ridgewood's cultural character, accounting for 16.06% of the village's population.

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