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. A relatively large number of people in Forest Park telecommute to their jobs. Overall, about 19.02% of the workforce works from home. While this may seem like a small number, as a fraction of the total workforce it ranks among the highest in the country. 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 is that it can take a long time to commute to work. In Forest Park, the average commute to work is 30.57 minutes, which is quite a bit higher than the national average. On the other hand, local public transit is widely used in the village, so leaving the car at home and taking transit is often a viable alternative. In addition, it is also a pedestrian-friendly village. Many of Forest Park’s neighborhoods are dense enough and have amenities close enough together that people find it feasible to get around on foot. Despite being a small village, Forest Park has a lot of people using the subway to get to and from work every day. Most of these people on the subway are using it to get to good jobs in other cities.The education level of Forest Park ranks among the highest in the nation. Of the 25-and-older adult population in Forest Park, 49.76% have at least a bachelor's degree. The typical US community has just 21.84% of its adults holding a bachelor's degree or graduate degree. 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.
