Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Bradley Beach's standout: it is more walkable than 98% of U.S. towns. Overall it grades B−, 285th of 466 graded towns in New Jersey. CDC estimates put its residents' health ahead of 93% of the country and the median household earns $97K. Its weakest subject is cost of living: homes are expensive, about $1.1 million for a typical one and 11.4 times the New York metro’s $99K median household income. Bradley Beach’s typical home value is $1,133,000, above both the New Jersey town median ($602,000) and the median of U.S. towns ($332,000). Of the 468 New Jersey towns we compare, none has a lower share of children under 18 than Bradley Beach. Bradley Beach has 2 places on the National Register of Historic Places, among them Bradley Beach Station and Bradley Beach Free Public Library.
Where Bradley Beach beats most towns.
Where Bradley Beach’s working residents go each day. Line width shows the share.
Census LEHD 2023
Each subject compared with towns across the country (schools within New Jersey), ordered by how far Bradley Beach is from typical.
Its grades run from A+ for walkability (better than 98% of comparable towns) to D− for cost of living (better than 2%), so the B− overall blends very different results.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Census counts: 982 in 1900, 4,282 in 2020. The archive holds 12 old photos and papers going back to 1933 and 5 maps from 1943 on.
2 places on the National Register of Historic Places.
Museums, parks, gardens and other places to visit around Bradley Beach. Close and well known come first.
Big draw38 mi Stadium & arenaMadison Square Garden
Big draw26 mi BeachConey Island
Big draw39 mi TheatreStudio 54
Big draw40 mi MuseumMetropolitan Museum of Art2.0M visitors a year
Big draw35 mi MuseumNational September 11 Memorial & Museum
Big draw33 mi Stadium & arenaBarclays CenterMadison Square Garden: Ajay Suresh from New York, NY, USA, CC BY 2.0 · Coney Island: OptimumPx, Public domain · Studio 54: Americasroof (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0 · Metropolitan Museum of Art: Hugo Schneider, CC BY-SA 2.0 · National September 11 Memorial & Museum: Paul Sableman, CC BY 2.0 · Barclays Center: Ajay Suresh from New York, NY, USA, CC BY 2.0
Who provides power, water and the rest in Bradley Beach, and how to reach them.
EPA SDWIS (Oct 9, 2026) · HIFLD + EIA-861 2025 · Census 2020 ZCTAs · NCES 2024–25 · registration: vote.gov, updated Nov 18, 2024.
Ordered by what stands out in Bradley Beach.
Bradley Beach is a second-home town and is safe by national standards but not by New Jersey’s; it also has homes that cost more against local pay than most of New Jersey.
At 11.4 years of the New York metro’s $99K median household income, the typical home (about $1.13M) costs more against local pay than in 92% of New Jersey towns; that ratio is one input to its D− for cost of living.
49% of Bradley Beach households own their home. Typical home values rose 8.8% in the year to September 2026. The median rent in Bradley Beach is $1,790 a month.
| Bradley Beach | New Jersey towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Households that own their home | 49% | 77% | 73% |
| Median rent | $1,790 a month | $1,778 a month | $1,185 a month |
Census ACS, 2020–24 · Zillow Home Value Index · Redfin Data Center
Its public schools are run by the Bradley Beach School District. Its one school is below.
| School | Level | Students | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bradley Beach Elementary SchoolLargest public elementary schoolGrades PK–8 | Grades PK–8 | 193 | C |
NCES · EDFacts · graded within NJ on state tests
Within New Jersey it is healthier than 64% of the 468 graded towns: New Jersey sets a high bar. Its widest gap with New Jersey is food insecurity: 9% of its 3,731 adults worry about having enough food, against 14.3% statewide.
27% of adults feel lonely in Bradley Beach. Bradley Beach beats the New Jersey average on 14 of 32 CDC measures and trails it on 1. 15% of adults have been diagnosed with depression in Bradley Beach.
| Bradley Beach | New Jersey towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Feel lonely (CDC PLACES) | 27% | 32% | 33% |
| Depression (CDC PLACES) | 15% | 16% | 23% |
| Frequent mental distress (CDC PLACES) | 13% | 15% | 17% |
| Sleep under 7 hours (CDC PLACES) | 32% | 36% | 36% |
| What stands out | Bradley Beach | NJ |
|---|---|---|
| Fewer adults facing food insecurity | 9% | 14.3% |
| Fewer adults facing housing insecurity | 8.1% | 12.3% |
| More adults who have had cancer | 9.5% | 7.5% |
CDC PLACES 2025 · modeled estimates for adults · CMS · HRSA
24.8% of workers work from home, against 16.8% across New Jersey.
Most working residents leave Bradley Beach for work: only 5% work in town. Jobs based in Bradley Beach grew to 757 in 2023, 146 more than in 2013. Bradley Beach’s average trip to work is 30 minutes.
| Bradley Beach | New Jersey towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median household income | $97,000 | $113,000 | $80,000 |
| Average trip to work | 30 minutes | 30 minutes | 25 minutes |
| Below the poverty line | 5.8% | 6.1% | 9.6% |
| Working residents who work in town | 5.4% | 6.3% | 8% |
Census LEHD 2023 · ACS
Bradley Beach has chilly winters and warm summers, with plenty of rain. July afternoons reach 85° and January nights drop to 26°.
NOAA U.S. Climate Normals, 1991–2020
At 15.2 crimes per 1,000 residents a year, it reports more crime than 58% of New Jersey’s graded towns. Violent crime is rare: 1 reported in 2025, 0.2 per 1,000 residents.
FBI crime data, 2025 · crimes reported to police
Expected storm and flood damage is lower than in 54% of U.S. communities. Since 1979, 70 flood insurance claims have been paid out in Bradley Beach.
FEMA flood insurance claims · FEMA National Risk Index · OpenFEMA
0.2 miles of trail in 2 parks and preserves. Among 437 New Jersey towns, just 9 have a lower share of conserved land than Bradley Beach.
| Bradley Beach | New Jersey towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Conserved land | 0.9% | 11% | 4.3% |
| Miles of trail per square mile | 0.3 miles per square mile | 0.7 | 0.4 |
| Biggest places to walk | Trails | Acres |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Riley Park | 0.2 mi | 1 |
| 2. Fletcher Lake Park | — | 1 |
Trails & parks © OpenStreetMap contributors · Conserved land: USGS PAD-US
20 within 15 miles of the center of Bradley Beach
About 11 of every 100 Bradley Beach residents are enrolled in college, against 6 across New Jersey.
Borough in Monmouth County, New Jersey, US
Bradley Beach is a borough in Monmouth County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 United States census, the borough's population was 4,282, a decrease of 16 (−0.4%) from the 2010 census count of 4,298, which in turn had reflected a decrease of 495 (−10.3%) from the 4,793 counted at the 2000 census. The summer population can reach 30,000.
From Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 · facts via Wikidata (CC0)
3 towns share a border with Bradley Beach.
| Town | NJ rank | Overall | Cost | Safety | Schools | Health |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bradley Beach | #285 | B− | D− | B | C− | A |
| Avon-by-the-Sea | — | — | D− | B | A | A+ |
| Neptune Township | #428 | D | D− | D | D− | B+ |
| Ocean Grove | — | — | — | — | — | — |
Avon-by-the-Sea has fewer than 2,500 residents, so it gets subject grades but no overall grade. Ocean Grove isn’t graded (fewer than 1,000 residents, or not enough data). Compare Bradley Beach with a neighbor →
Short answers, built from the data on this page.
Bradley Beach grades B− overall, better than 51% of U.S. towns and #285 of 466 in New Jersey. It grades A for health, B for safety and C− for schools. Cost of living is its weak spot, with a D−.
Yes. Cost of living, which also weighs rents, property taxes and how many households pay 30% or more of their income for housing, grades D−.
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