In addition, Ridgewood is home to many people who could be described as "urban sophisticates". Urban sophisticates are people who are both educated and wealthy, and thus tend to be older, richer, and more established than young professionals. "Urban sophisticates" is not just about being educated and well-off financially: it is a point of view and state of mind, one that you might call 'urbaneness'. But such people can and do regularly live in small towns, suburbs and rural areas, as well as in big cities. They read, support the arts and high-end shops, and love travel.
Because of many things, Ridgewood is a great place for families with children to consider. First of all, many other families with children live here, making Ridgewood a place where both parents and children are more likely to develop social ties with other families, as well as find family-oriented services and community. The village’s good public school district and large population of college-educated adults provide an environment conducive to academic values. With regard to real estate, Ridgewood has a high rate of owner-occupied single family homes, which tends to reflect stability in the local community. Finally, Ridgewood’s overall crime rate is lower than average for the country.
In Ridgewood, however, the average commute to work is quite long. On average, people spend 32.41 minutes each day getting to work, which is significantly higher than the national average. One bright side is that local public transit is widely used, so it may be an option to avoid the headache of driving in the heavy traffic by leaving the car at home and taking transit.
Although the majority of commuting trips in the village are by private automobile, Ridgewood is somewhat unusual for a village of its size for having a substantial number of people who use public transportation. For a lot of people, the train helps to get to and from their jobs every morning, which benefits everyone in the Ridgewood area by reducing both traffic and air pollution.
If knowledge is power, Ridgewood is a pretty powerful place. 80.61% of the adults in Ridgewood have earned a 4-year college degree, masters degree, MD, law degree, or even PhD. Compare that to the national average of 21.84% for all cities and towns.
The per capita income in Ridgewood in 2022 was $98,259, which is wealthy relative to New Jersey and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $393,036 for a family of four.
Ridgewood is an extremely ethnically-diverse village. The people who call Ridgewood home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Ridgewood residents report their race to be White, followed by Asian. Ridgewood also has a sizeable Hispanic population (people of Hispanic origin can be of any race). People of Hispanic or Latino origin account for 10.20% of the village’s residents. Important ancestries of people in Ridgewood include Irish, Italian, German, English, and Polish.
In addition, Ridgewood has a lot of people living here who were born outside of the US (21.44%).
The most common language spoken in Ridgewood is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Korean.
