Queens is an enormous coastal borough (i.e. on the ocean, a bay, or inlet) located in the state of New York. With a population of 2,405,464 people and 724 constituent neighborhoods, Queens is the second largest community in New York.
Queens home prices are not only among the most expensive in New York, but Queens real estate also consistently ranks among the most expensive in America.
Unlike some boroughs where white-collar or blue-collar occupations dominate the local economy, Queens is neither predominantly one nor the other. Instead, it has a mixed workforce of both white- and blue-collar jobs. Overall, Queens is a borough of service providers, professionals, and sales and office workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Queens who work in office and administrative support (11.74%), sales jobs (8.98%), and management occupations (8.50%).
Also of interest is that Queens has more people living here who work in computers and math than 95% of the places in the US.
One thing noticeable about Queens, is that it has a large population of people who are young, single, educated, and upwardly-mobile career starters. That’s because Queens is full of single people in their 20s and 30s and who have undergraduate or graduate degrees and are starting careers in professional occupations. This makes Queens a great place for young, educated career starters looking to find many people like themselves, with good opportunities for friendships, socializing, romance, and fun. In fact, Queens is one of the top larger cities in America for educated single professionals to flock.
Queens is also nautical, which means that parts of it are somewhat historic and touch the ocean or tidal bodies of water, such as inlets and bays. Such areas are often places that visitors and locals go for waterfront activities or taking in the scenery.
One downside of living in Queens is that it can take a long time to commute to work. In Queens, the average commute to work is 41.41 minutes, which is quite a bit higher than the national average. On the other hand, local public transit is widely used in the borough, so leaving the car at home and taking transit is often a viable alternative. In addition, it is also a pedestrian-friendly borough. Many of Queens’s neighborhoods are dense enough and have amenities close enough together that people find it feasible to get around on foot.
Queens, like many big cities in America, has a public transportation system, but the citizens of Queens are lucky because theirs is one of the most extensive and widely used. Many commuters choose to leave their cars at home and instead use the subway to get to and from work. In fact, for some people it is feasible to forgo car ownership entirely, avoiding the cost and headache of driving in heavy traffic. The benefits include reduced air pollution and load on the road network.
In terms of college education, Queens is substantially better educated than the typical community in the nation, which has 21.84% of the adults holding a bachelor's degree or graduate degree: 33.47% of adults in Queens have a college degree.
The per capita income in Queens in 2018 was $33,626, which is middle income relative to New York, and upper middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $134,504 for a family of four. However, Queens contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
Queens is an extremely ethnically-diverse borough. The people who call Queens home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. People of Hispanic or Latino origin are the most prevalent group in Queens, accounting for 27.81% of the borough’s residents (people of Hispanic or Latino origin can be of any race). The greatest number of Queens residents report their race to be Asian, followed by White. Important ancestries of people in Queens include Italian, Irish, Jamaican, Guyanese, and German.
Foreign born people are also an important part of Queens's cultural character, accounting for 46.94% of the borough’s population.
The most common language spoken in Queens is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Chinese.