Worcester is a relatively large city located in the state of Massachusetts. With a population of 172,648 people and 41 constituent neighborhoods, Worcester is the second largest community in Massachusetts. Worcester has an unusually large stock of pre-World War II architecture, making it one of the older and more historic cities in the country.

Unlike some cities where white-collar or blue-collar occupations dominate the local economy, Worcester is neither predominently one or the other. Instead, it has a mixed workforce of both white- and blue-collar jobs. Overall, Worcester is a city of sales and office workers, professionals, and service providers. There are especially a lot of people living in Worcester who work in office and administrative support jobs (16.37%), sales jobs (9.93%), and management occupations (6.76%).

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

Combining city textures and college town sensibilities, Worcester really has a nice blend of characteristics. While not a huge city, Worcester is big enough to offer a healthy dose of diversion, opportunity, and amenity to its residents and to the thousands of college students who descend on it every fall. Its size and diversity makes Worcester more than just a college town, but removing the students from the equation would undeniably change Worcester's character and quality of life.

Like elsewhere in America, most people in Worcester use a private automobile to get to work. But notably, a substantial number of Worcester's citizens do make use of public transit in their daily commute, primarily riding the bus. This helps more people get to work with less air pollution, and require fewer highways to get them there.

Worcester Information and Demographics

The overall education level of Worcester is somewhat higher than in the average US city of 14.96%: 23.32% of adults 25 and older in the city have at least a bachelor's degree.

The per capita income in Worcester in 2000 was $18,614, which is low income relative to Massachusetts, and middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $74,456 for a family of four.

Worcester is a very ethnically-diverse city. The people who call Worcester home come from a variety of different races and ancestries. The most prevalent race in Worcester is White, followed by African-American. Worcester also has a sizeable Hispanic population (people of Hispanic origin can be of any race). People of Hispanic or Latino origin account for 15.32% of the city's residents. Important ancestries of people in Worcester include Irish, Italian, French, Polish, English, French Canadian, and Swedish.

The most common language spoken in Worcester is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Vietnamese.