Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
A town of 37,128, settled in 1882.
For most people who can afford it, yes. Fair Lawn grades A overall, 98th of 466 graded towns in New Jersey. Few places in the country are easier to get around without a car. Residents are healthier than 97% of U.S. towns on CDC estimates and its schools rank ahead of 85% of New Jersey towns. The trade-off is money: the typical home is worth about $721K, 7.3 years of the New York metro’s $99K median household income. 63% of adults 25 and older hold a bachelor’s degree or more in Fair Lawn, above both New Jersey’s towns (45%) and U.S. towns (29%). Fair Lawn has 8 places on the National Register of Historic Places, among them Radburn and Radburn-Fair Lawn Station.
Where Fair Lawn beats most towns.
| School | Grades | Students |
|---|---|---|
| Radburn Elementary School | K–4 | 445 |
| Henry B. Milnes Elementary School | K–4 | 392 |
| Warren Point Elementary School | K–4 | 391 |
Where Fair Lawn’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 Fair Lawn is from typical.
Its grades run from A+ for walkability (better than 99% of comparable towns) to D for cost of living (better than 8%), so the A overall blends very different results.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Radburn is a National Historic Landmark, the National Register’s top tier.
Census counts: 756 in 1900, 34,927 in 2020. The archive holds 6 old photos and papers going back to 1930 and 8 maps from 1888 on.
8 places on the National Register of Historic Places.
Museums, parks, gardens and other places to visit around Fair Lawn. Close and well known come first.
Big draw13 mi GardenCentral Park40.0M visitors a year
Big draw9 mi Stadium & arenaMetLife Stadium
Big draw14 mi Stadium & arenaMadison Square Garden
Big draw14 mi TheatreStudio 54
Big draw14 mi MuseumMetropolitan Museum of Art2.0M visitors a year
Big draw12 mi Stadium & arenaYankee StadiumCentral Park: Ed Yourdon from New York City, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0 · MetLife Stadium: babyknight, CC BY 2.0 · Madison Square Garden: Ajay Suresh from New York, NY, USA, CC BY 2.0 · Studio 54: Americasroof (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0 · Metropolitan Museum of Art: Hugo Schneider, CC BY-SA 2.0 · Yankee Stadium: Matt Boulton, CC BY-SA 2.0
Who provides power, water and the rest in Fair Lawn, 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 Fair Lawn.
Fair Lawn draws workers from Paterson and beyond and has less food insecurity than most of New Jersey, but it has a long record of flood insurance claims.
Its widest gap with New Jersey is food insecurity: 8.1% of its 27,012 adults worry about having enough food, against 14.3% statewide.
15% of adults have been diagnosed with depression in Fair Lawn. Fair Lawn beats the New Jersey average on 18 of 32 CDC measures and trails it on 1. 9.8% of adults report frequent physical distress in Fair Lawn.
| Fair Lawn | New Jersey towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Depression (CDC PLACES) | 15% | 16% | 23% |
| Frequent physical distress (CDC PLACES) | 9.8% | 12% | 14% |
| Obesity (CDC PLACES) | 25% | 28% | 35% |
| Smoke cigarettes (CDC PLACES) | 7.7% | 11% | 14% |
| What stands out | Fair Lawn | NJ |
|---|---|---|
| Fewer adults facing food insecurity | 8.1% | 14.3% |
| Fewer older adults who have lost all their teeth | 5.5% | 9.6% |
| More adults who have had cancer | 8.5% | 7.5% |
CDC PLACES 2025 · modeled estimates for adults · CMS · HRSA
Its A for schools comes with a D for cost of living: the typical home is worth about $721K.
Its public schools are run by the Fair Lawn Public School District. Three of its 12 schools are below, each with why it’s listed.
| School | Level | Students | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Thomas Jefferson Middle SchoolLargest public middle schoolGrades 5–8 | Grades 5–8 | 1,100 | A |
| Fair Lawn High SchoolLargest public high schoolGrades 9–12 | Grades 9–12 | 1,687 | A |
| Henry B. Milnes Elementary SchoolTop results in townGrades K–4 | Grades K–4 | 392 | A+ |
NCES · EDFacts · graded within NJ on state tests and graduation
6.9 miles of trail in 13 parks and preserves. Fair Lawn’s trail density is 1.3 miles per square mile. Saddle River County Park, at 102 acres with 2.2 miles of trail, is the biggest park or preserve.
| Fair Lawn | New Jersey towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Miles of trail per square mile | 1.3 miles per square mile | 0.7 | 0.4 |
| Conserved land | 7.1% | 11% | 4.3% |
| Biggest places to walk | Trails | Acres |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Saddle River County Park | 2.2 mi | 102 |
| 2. Radburn B-Park | 0.9 mi | 10 |
| 3. Radburn R Park | 0.7 mi | 5 |
Trails & parks © OpenStreetMap contributors · Conserved land: USGS PAD-US
11,494 jobs are based in Fair Lawn, 1.6 for every working resident, so most of the people who work here commute in.
Most working residents leave Fair Lawn for work: only 4% work in town. The median household income in Fair Lawn is $145,000. The top destinations are New York (22%), Jersey City (3%) and Paramus (2%).
| Fair Lawn | New Jersey towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median household income | $145,000 | $113,000 | $80,000 |
| Work from home | 20% | 16% | 11% |
| Average trip to work | 31 minutes | 30 minutes | 25 minutes |
| Working residents who work in town | 4.1% | 6.3% | 8% |
Census LEHD 2023 · ACS
Typical home values rose 7.2% in the year to September 2026.
| Fair Lawn | New Jersey towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median rent | $1,917 a month | $1,778 a month | $1,185 a month |
| Households that own their home | 78% | 77% | 73% |
Zillow Home Value Index · Redfin Data Center
Fair Lawn has chilly winters and warm summers, with plenty of rain. July afternoons reach 86°, January nights drop to 23° and about 24 inches of snow falls in a winter.
NOAA U.S. Climate Normals, 1991–2020
Fair Lawn's reported crime rate is below New Jersey's. Most reported incidents are property crimes, mainly thefts. 16 violent crimes were reported in 2024.
| Fair Lawn | New Jersey towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Violent crimes per 1,000 (2024) | 0.4 per 1,000 residents | 0.7 | 1.7 |
| Property crimes per 1,000 (2024) | 9.4 per 1,000 residents | 8.9 | 11.5 |
FBI crime data, 2024 · crimes reported to police
291 flood insurance claims have been filed here, and 32 properties have flooded more than once.
Expected storm and flood damage is lower than in 55% of U.S. communities. Since 1978, 291 flood insurance claims have been paid out in Fair Lawn.
FEMA flood insurance claims · FEMA National Risk Index · OpenFEMA
86 within 15 miles of the center of Fair Lawn
About 7 of every 100 Fair Lawn residents are enrolled in college, about the same as New Jersey.
8 places in Fair Lawn on the National Register of Historic Places.
Borough in Bergen County, New Jersey, US
Fair Lawn is a borough in Bergen County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey, and a bedroom suburb located 12 miles (19 km) northwest of New York City. As of the 2020 United States census, the borough's population was 34,927, an increase of 2,470 (+7.6%) from the 2010 census count of 32,457, which in turn reflected an increase of 820 (+2.6%) from the 31,637 counted in the 2000 census. Fair Lawn was incorporated as a borough by an act of the New Jersey Legislature on March 6, 1924, as "Fairlawn", from portions of Saddle River Township. The name was taken from Fairlawn, David Acker's estate home, that was built in 1865 and later became the Fair Lawn Municipal Building. In 1933, the official spell…
From Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 · facts via Wikidata (CC0)
7 towns share a border with Fair Lawn.
| Town | NJ rank | Overall | Cost | Safety | Schools | Health |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fair Lawn | #98 | A | D | — | A | A+ |
| Paramus | #293 | B− | D− | C− | B+ | A |
| Paterson | #460 | D− | C− | D | D | D |
| Glen Rock | #32 | A+ | D | A− | A | A+ |
| Saddle Brook Township | #191 | B+ | D | B | B | A |
| Elmwood Park | #368 | C | D− | C | C | A− |
| Hawthorne | #192 | B+ | D | A− | B− | A |
| Rochelle Park Township | #267 | B− | D− | B− | B− | A |
Fair Lawn reports no FBI crime data of its own. Compare Fair Lawn with a neighbor →
Short answers, built from the data on this page.
For most people who can afford it, yes. Fair Lawn grades A overall, better than 89% of U.S. towns and #98 of 466 in New Jersey. It grades A+ for health and A 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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