What’s it like to live in Jacksonville, FL?

Jacksonville is a very large coastal city (i.e. on the ocean, a bay, or inlet) located in the state of Florida. With a population of 868,031 people and 162 constituent neighborhoods, Jacksonville is the largest community in Florida.

Unlike some cities where white-collar or blue-collar occupations dominate the local economy, Jacksonville is neither predominantly one nor the other. Instead, it has a mixed workforce of both white- and blue-collar jobs. Overall, Jacksonville is a city of sales and office workers, professionals, and service providers. There are especially a lot of people living in Jacksonville who work in office and administrative support (16.59%), sales jobs (11.41%), and management occupations (9.11%).

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


One important feature of Jacksonville is that it is one of the most car-oriented large cities in the country. In fact, 0.84% of people commute to and from work every day by private automobile, eschewing alternative forms of transportation, which are not widely available in Jacksonville anyway. So, if you like to drive, Jacksonville is the city for you! The landscape around Jacksonville reflects this: wide streets, parking lots, plenty of highways, malls, and shopping centers are what you’ll find.


In terms of college education, Jacksonville is somewhat better educated than the 21.84% who have a 4-year degree or higher in the typical US community: 26.31% of adults 25 and older in the city have at least a bachelor’s degree.

The per capita income in Jacksonville in 2010 was $25,554, which is middle income relative to Florida, and upper middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $102,216 for a family of four. However, Jacksonville contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.


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