Melrose is a medium-sized city located in the state of Massachusetts. With a population of 29,155 people and seven associated neighborhoods, Melrose is the 61st largest community in Massachusetts. Melrose has an unusually large stock of pre-World War II architecture, making it one of the older and more historic cities. Melrose home prices are not only among the most expensive in Massachusetts, but Melrose real estate also consistently ranks among the most expensive in America.Melrose is a decidedly white-collar city, with fully 90.27% of the workforce employed in white-collar jobs, well above the national average. Overall, Melrose is a city of professionals, managers, and sales and office workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Melrose who work in management occupations (19.53%), business and financial occupations (9.97%), and sales jobs (8.87%). Also of interest is that Melrose has more people living here who work in computers and math than 95% of the places in the US. Of important note, Melrose is also a city of artists. Melrose has more artists, designers and people working in media than 90% of the communities in America. This concentration of artists helps shape Melrose’s character. Telecommuters are a relatively large percentage of the workforce: 20.57% 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. In addition, Melrose is home to many people who could be described as "urban sophisticates", which are people who are not only wealthy and employed in professional occupations, but highly educated to boot. Urban sophisticates have urbane tastes - whether they reside in a big or small city, a suburb, or a little town. Urban sophisticates support bookstores, quality clothing stores, enjoy luxury travel, and in big cities, they are truly the patrons of the arts, attending and supporting institutions such as opera, symphony, ballet, and theatre. Because of many things, Melrose is a very good place for families to consider. With an enviable combination of good schools, low crime, college-educated neighbors who tend to support education because of their own experiences, and a high rate of home ownership in predominantly single-family properties, Melrose really has some of the features that families look for when choosing a good community to raise children. Is Melrose perfect? Of course not, and if you like frenetic nightlife, it will be far from your cup of tea. But overall this is a solid community, with many things to recommend it as a family-friendly place to live. In Melrose, however, the average commute to work is quite long. On average, people spend 36.05 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. In addition, the city is also quite pedestrian-friendly, because many neighborhoods are very dense and have amenities close enough together that people find it feasible to get around on foot. Although the majority of commuting trips in the city are by private automobile, Melrose is somewhat unusual for a city of its size for having a substantial number of people who use public transportation. For a lot of people, the subway helps to get to and from their jobs every morning, which benefits everyone in the Melrose area by reducing both traffic and air pollution.If knowledge is power, Melrose is a pretty powerful place. 61.28% of the adults in Melrose 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 Melrose in 2022 was $60,957, which is upper middle income relative to Massachusetts, and wealthy relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $243,828 for a family of four. Melrose is a very ethnically-diverse city. The people who call Melrose home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Melrose residents report their race to be White, followed by Asian. Important ancestries of people in Melrose include Irish, Italian, English, German, and Polish. In addition, Melrose has a lot of people living here who were born outside of the US (15.44%). The most common language spoken in Melrose is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Chinese.
