Beacon is a medium-sized city located in the state of New York. With a population of 15,025 people and five associated neighborhoods, Beacon is the 139th largest community in New York. Much of the housing stock in Beacon was built prior to World War II, making it one of the older and more historic cities in the country.

Housing costs in Beacon are among some of the highest in the nation, although real estate prices here don't compare to real estate prices in the most expensive communities in New York.

Of important note, Beacon is also a city of artists. Beacon has more artists, designers and people working in media than 90% of the communities in America. This concentration of artists helps shape Beacon’s character.

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

One interesting thing about the economy is that relatively large numbers of people worked from their home: 16.95% of the workforce. While this number may seem small overall, as a fraction of the total workforce this is high compared to the rest of the county. 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.

In addition, Beacon 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.

One downside of living in Beacon is that it can take a long time to commute to work. In Beacon, the average commute to work is 36.48 minutes, which is quite a bit higher than the national average. On the other hand, local public transit is widely used in the city, so leaving the car at home and taking transit is often a viable alternative.

In Beacon, a lot of people use the train to get to work every day though Beacon is a relatively small city. Those that ride the train are primarily traveling out of town to good jobs in other cities.

The citizens of Beacon are among the most well-educated in the nation: 45.18% of adults in Beacon have a bachelor's degree or even advanced degree, whereas the average US city has 21.84% holding at least a bachelor's degree.

The per capita income in Beacon in 2022 was $48,985, which is upper middle income relative to New York, and wealthy relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $195,940 for a family of four. However, Beacon contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.

Beacon is an extremely ethnically-diverse city. The people who call Beacon home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Beacon residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Beacon also has a sizeable Hispanic population (people of Hispanic origin can be of any race). People of Hispanic or Latino origin account for 20.14% of the city’s residents. Important ancestries of people in Beacon include Irish, Italian, German, English, and Portuguese.

The most common language spoken in Beacon is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and German/Yiddish.