One downside of living in Oak Forest is that it can take a long time to commute to work. In Oak Forest, the average commute to work is 32.62 minutes, which is quite a bit higher than the national average. On the other hand, local public transit is widely used in the city, so leaving the car at home and taking transit is often a viable alternative.
Although the majority of commuting trips in the city are by private automobile, Oak Forest 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 train helps to get to and from their jobs every morning, which benefits everyone in the Oak Forest area by reducing both traffic and air pollution.
In terms of college education, Oak Forest is substantially better educated than the typical community in the nation, which has 21.84% of the adults holding a bachelor's degree or graduate degree: 31.25% of adults in Oak Forest have a college degree.
The per capita income in Oak Forest in 2022 was $41,453, which is upper middle income relative to Illinois and the nation. This equates to an annual income of $165,812 for a family of four. However, Oak Forest contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
Oak Forest is a very ethnically-diverse city. The people who call Oak Forest home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Oak Forest residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Oak Forest also has a sizeable Hispanic population (people of Hispanic origin can be of any race). People of Hispanic or Latino origin account for 14.71% of the city’s residents. Important ancestries of people in Oak Forest include Irish, German, Polish, Italian, and English.
The most common language spoken in Oak Forest is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Arabic.
