Oak Ridge is a medium-sized city located in the state of Tennessee. With a population of 27,413 people and seven constituent neighborhoods, Oak Ridge is the 23rd largest community in Tennessee.

Oak Ridge is a decidedly white-collar city, with fully 85.64% of the workforce employed in white-collar jobs, well above the national average. Overall, Oak Ridge is a city of professionals, sales and office workers, and managers. There are especially a lot of people living in Oak Ridge who work in office and administrative support jobs (14.85%), sales jobs (10.60%), and management occupations (9.61%).

And if you like science, one thing you'll find is that Oak Ridge has lots of scientists living in town - whether they be life scientists, physical scientists (like astronomers), or social scientists (like geographers!). So, if you're scientific-minded, you might like it here too.

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

In addition, Oak Ridge 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.

Residents of the city have the good fortune of having one of the shortest daily commutes compared to the rest of the country. On average, they spend only 18.53 minutes getting to work every day.

Oak Ridge is a very car-oriented city. This is because most people - 97.5% - drive by car to work every day, and few people choose alternative modes of transportation, such as public transit, cycling, or walking. In general, car-oriented communities have a layout that emphasizes streets, highways, and ease of parking, and sometimes this can be to the detriment of human-scale priorities such as walkability alongside roads, and public spaces. For example, strip malls are something you will find in Oak Ridge.

Oak Ridge has quite a few people who use public transportation to get to work each day, primarily riding taxis.

Oak Ridge Information and Demographics

The citizens of Oak Ridge are very well educated compared to the average community in the nation: 37.90% of adults in Oak Ridge have a bachelor's degree or even advanced degree.

The per capita income in Oak Ridge in 2000 was $24,793, which is wealthy relative to Tennessee, and upper middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $99,172 for a family of four.

Oak Ridge is a somewhat ethnically-diverse city. The people who call Oak Ridge home come from a variety of different races and ancestries. The most prevalent race in Oak Ridge is White, followed by African-American. Important ancestries of people in Oak Ridge include English, German, Irish, Scotch-Irish, Scottish, and European.

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