Forest Park is a medium-sized village located in the state of Illinois. With a population of 13,660 people and three associated neighborhoods, Forest Park is the 171st largest community in Illinois. Forest Park has an unusually large stock of pre-World War II architecture, making it one of the older and more historic villages.Forest Park is a decidedly white-collar village, with fully 88.37% of the workforce employed in white-collar jobs, well above the national average. Overall, Forest Park is a village of professionals, managers, and sales and office workers. There are especially a lot of people living in Forest Park who work in management occupations (14.60%), sales jobs (10.10%), and business and financial occupations (8.04%). Also of interest is that Forest Park 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: 19.02% 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. One downside of living in Forest Park, however, is that residents on average have to contend with a long commute, spending on average 30.57 minutes every day commuting to work. It is, however, a pedestrian-friendly village. Many of its neighborhoods are dense enough and have amenities close enough together that people find it feasible to get around on foot. In addition, local public transit is widely used. For those who would prefer to avoid driving entirely and leave their car at home, it may be an option to use the transit instead. In Forest Park, a lot of people use the subway to get to work every day though Forest Park is a relatively small village. Those that ride the subway are primarily traveling out of town to good jobs in other cities.Forest Park is one of the most well-educated cities in the nation. 49.76% of adults in Forest Park have at least a bachelor's degree. Compare that to the average community in America, which has just 21.84% with a bachelor's degree or higher. The per capita income in Forest Park in 2022 was $55,165, which is wealthy relative to Illinois and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $220,660 for a family of four. However, Forest Park contains both very wealthy and poor people as well. Forest Park is an extremely ethnically-diverse village. The people who call Forest Park home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Forest Park residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Forest Park also has a sizeable Hispanic population (people of Hispanic origin can be of any race). People of Hispanic or Latino origin account for 11.12% of the village’s residents. Important ancestries of people in Forest Park include German, Irish, Italian, English, and Polish. The most common language spoken in Forest Park is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Arabic.
