Bridgewater is a very small town located in the state of New Hampshire. With a population of 1,189 people and just one neighborhood, Bridgewater is the 167th largest community in New Hampshire.
Bridgewater is neither predominantly blue-collar nor white-collar, instead having a mixed workforce of both blue-collar and white-collar jobs. Overall, Bridgewater is a town of professionals, sales and office workers, and managers. There are especially a lot of people living in Bridgewater who work in management occupations (14.21%), sales jobs (10.45%), and office and administrative support (8.90%).
Also of interest is that Bridgewater 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: 8.25% 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.
Another notable thing is that Bridgewater is an extremely popular vacation destination. A significant portion of the population is seasonal. During the vacation season, the town experiences a large influx of people who take up residence in second homes they own in the area. As the vacation season ends, the population drops again, leaving behind a substantially quieter and smaller town.
Bridgewater is a good choice for families with children because of several factors. Many other families with children live here, making it a place where both parents and children are more likely to develop social ties with other families. The town’s good public school district and large population of college-educated adults provide an environment conducive to academic success. Many people own their own single-family homes, providing areas for children to play and stability in the community. Finally, Bridgewater’s overall crime rate ranks among the lowest in the country, making it one of the safest places to raise a family.
It is a fairly quiet town because there are relatively few of those groups of people who have a tendency to be noisy. (Children, for example, often can't help themselves from being noisy, and being parents ourselves, we know!) Bridgewater has relatively few families with children living at home, and is quieter because of it. Renters and college students, for their own reasons, can also be noisy. Bridgewater has few renters and college students. But the biggest reason it is quieter in Bridgewater than in most places in America, is that there are just simply fewer people living here. If you think trees make good neighbors, Bridgewater may be for you.
The education level of Bridgewater citizens is very high relative to the national average among all cities (21.84%): 36.28% of adults in Bridgewater have a bachelor's degree or even advanced degree.
The per capita income in Bridgewater in 2022 was $50,433, which is upper middle income relative to New Hampshire, and wealthy relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $201,732 for a family of four. However, Bridgewater contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
The people who call Bridgewater home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Bridgewater residents report their race to be White. Important ancestries of people in Bridgewater include Irish, English, French, Italian, and German.
The most common language spoken in Bridgewater is English. Other important languages spoken here include Italian and Polish.
Many things matter about a neighborhood, but the first thing most people notice is the way a neighborhood looks and its particular character. For example, one might notice whether the buildings all date from a certain time period or whether shop signs are in multiple languages. This particular neighborhood in Bridgewater, the neighborhood, has some outstanding things about the way it looks and its way of life that are worth highlighting.
Despite all of the residential real estate here in the neighborhood, NeighborhoodScout has discovered that much of it is vacant. In resort or second-home vacation areas, this naturally occurs because homes and apartments are seasonally occupied, and empty for a portion of the year. In non-vacation or resort areas, however, this can be an indicator of property abandonment or a weak real estate market. The vacancy rate here is 62.5%, which is higher than 99.5% of all U.S. neighborhoods.
In addition, one of the notable things about is that it is one of the quietest neighborhoods in America, according to NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis and quantitative rating of quietness. When you are here, you will find it to be very quiet. If quiet and peaceful are your cup of tea, you may have found a great place for you.
If you're nearing retirement age, or in retirement, the is an excellent choice for you to consider for top-quality retirement living. This neighborhood is rated by NeighborhoodScout as among the top 5.4% of retiree-friendly neighborhoods in New Hampshire, combining peace and quiet, safety from crime, and offering diverse housing options from which retirees can choose. Maybe it's because of these amenities that a large proportion of the residents here are college educated seniors, mixed with other age groups. For these and other reasons, NeighborhoodScout identifies this neighborhood as a top-notch place to consider if you are thinking of or planning to retire in New Hampshire.
Did you know that the neighborhood has more Scots-Irish and French Canadian ancestry people living in it than nearly any neighborhood in America? It's true! In fact, 6.5% of this neighborhood's residents have Scots-Irish ancestry and 7.3% have French Canadian ancestry.
is also pretty special linguistically. Significantly, 2.1% of its residents five years old and above primarily speak Greek at home. While this may seem like a small percentage, it is higher than 99.2% of the neighborhoods in America.
There are two complementary measures for understanding the income of a neighborhood's residents: the average and the extremes. While a neighborhood may be relatively wealthy overall, it is equally important to understand the rate of people - particularly children - who are living at or below the federal poverty line, which is extremely low income. Some neighborhoods with a lower average income may actually have a lower childhood poverty rate than another with a higher average income, and this helps us understand the conditions and character of a neighborhood.
The neighbors in the neighborhood in Bridgewater are middle-income, making it a moderate income neighborhood. NeighborhoodScout's exclusive analysis reveals that this neighborhood has a higher income than 53.6% of the neighborhoods in America. In addition, 5.0% of the children seventeen and under living in this neighborhood are living below the federal poverty line, which is a lower rate of childhood poverty than is found in 64.5% of America's neighborhoods.
A neighborhood is far different if it is dominated by enlisted military personnel rather than people who earn their living by farming. It is also different if most of the neighbors are clerical support or managers. What is wonderful is the sheer diversity of neighborhoods, allowing you to find the type that fits your lifestyle and aspirations.
In the neighborhood, 35.9% of the working population is employed in executive, management, and professional occupations. The second most important occupational group in this neighborhood is manufacturing and laborer occupations, with 30.4% of the residents employed. Other residents here are employed in sales and service jobs, from major sales accounts, to working in fast food restaurants (22.9%), and 9.7% in clerical, assistant, and tech support occupations.
The languages spoken by people in this neighborhood are diverse. These are tabulated as the languages people preferentially speak when they are at home with their families. The most common language spoken in the neighborhood is English, spoken by 96.3% of households. Other important languages spoken here include Italian, Polish and Greek.
Culture is shared learned behavior. We learn it from our parents, their parents, our houses of worship, and much of our culture – our learned behavior – comes from our ancestors. That is why ancestry and ethnicity can be so interesting and important to understand: places with concentrations of people of one or more ancestries often express those shared learned behaviors and this gives each neighborhood its own culture. Even different neighborhoods in the same city can have drastically different cultures.
In the neighborhood in Bridgewater, NH, residents most commonly identify their ethnicity or ancestry as Irish (18.2%). There are also a number of people of English ancestry (15.9%), and residents who report French roots (13.8%), and some of the residents are also of Italian ancestry (11.8%), along with some German ancestry residents (8.9%), among others.
How you get to work – car, bus, train or other means – and how much of your day it takes to do so is a large quality of life and financial issue. Especially with gasoline prices rising and expected to continue doing so, the length and means of one's commute can be a financial burden. Some neighborhoods are physically located so that many residents have to drive in their own car, others are set up so many walk to work, or can take a train, bus, or bike. The greatest number of commuters in neighborhood spend between 30 and 45 minutes commuting one-way to work (33.4% of working residents), which is at or a bit above the average length of a commute across all U.S. neighborhoods.
Here most residents (80.9%) drive alone in a private automobile to get to work. In a neighborhood like this, as in most of the nation, many residents find owning a car useful for getting to work.