Columbia Heights is a medium-sized city located in the state of Minnesota. With a population of 21,835 people and six constituent neighborhoods, Columbia Heights is the 53rd largest community in Minnesota.
Unlike some cities where white-collar or blue-collar occupations dominate the local economy, Columbia Heights is neither predominantly one nor the other. Instead, it has a mixed workforce of both white- and blue-collar jobs. Overall, Columbia Heights is a city of professionals, sales and office workers, and service providers. There are especially a lot of people living in Columbia Heights who work in office and administrative support (11.04%), sales jobs (10.67%), and management occupations (8.14%).
Also of interest is that Columbia Heights has more people living here who work in computers and math than 95% of the places in the US.
Telecommuters are a relatively large percentage of the workforce: 7.31% of people work from home. While this number may seem small overall, as a fraction of the total workforce it is high relative to the nation. 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.
For the size of the city, public transportation in Columbia Heights is quite heavily used. Mostly, people who use it for their daily commute are taking the bus. For Columbia Heights, the benefits are reduced air pollution and congestion on the highways.
The percentage of people in Columbia Heights who are college-educated is somewhat higher than the average US community of 21.84%: 28.32% of adults in Columbia Heights have at least a bachelor's degree.
The per capita income in Columbia Heights in 2018 was $32,528, which is upper middle income relative to Minnesota and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $130,112 for a family of four. However, Columbia Heights contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
Columbia Heights is an extremely ethnically-diverse city. The people who call Columbia Heights home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Columbia Heights residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Important ancestries of people in Columbia Heights include German, Irish, Norwegian, Polish, and Swedish.
Foreign born people are also an important part of Columbia Heights's cultural character, accounting for 16.29% of the city’s population.
The most common language spoken in Columbia Heights is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and African languages.