Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Settled in 1868, this town now has 5,817 residents.
Norwood does the important things well, at a cost. Its strongest subject is incomes: the median household earns $178K. The town’s overall A puts it 64th of 466 in New Jersey. Nationally, it does better than 92% of U.S. towns. Health is another plus: residents are healthier than 97% of U.S. towns on CDC estimates. What holds it back is cost of living — the typical home is worth about $935K, 9.4 years of the New York metro’s $99K median household income. This New Jersey town has 7 places on the National Register of Historic Places, among them Terhune House and Capt. Thomas Blanch House.
Figures: incomes, Census ACS, 2020–24 · health, CDC PLACES · home values, Zillow · National Register of Historic Places.
Where Norwood beats most towns.
Each subject compared with towns across the country (schools within New Jersey), ordered by how far Norwood is from typical.
Its grades run from A+ for jobs and income (better than 99% of comparable towns) to D− for cost of living (better than 2%), so the A overall blends very different results.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Census counts: 400 in 1900, 5,641 in 2020. The archive holds 12 old photos and papers going back to 1979 and a map from 1979 on.
7 places on the National Register of Historic Places.
Museums, parks, gardens and other places to visit around Norwood. Close and well known come first.
Big draw14 mi City parkCentral Park40.0M visitors a year
Big draw17 mi Stadium & arenaMadison Square Garden
Big draw14 mi Stadium & arenaMetLife Stadium
Big draw14 mi MuseumMetropolitan Museum of Art2.0M visitors a year
Big draw16 mi TheatreStudio 54
Big draw11 mi Stadium & arenaYankee StadiumCentral Park: Ed Yourdon from New York City, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0 · Madison Square Garden: Ajay Suresh from New York, NY, USA, CC BY 2.0 · MetLife Stadium: babyknight, CC BY 2.0 · Metropolitan Museum of Art: Hugo Schneider, CC BY-SA 2.0 · Studio 54: Americasroof (talk), CC BY-SA 3.0 · Yankee Stadium: Matt Boulton, CC BY-SA 2.0
Who provides power, water and the rest in Norwood, 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 Norwood.
Norwood carries less natural-hazard risk than most of New Jersey (mostly inland flooding), sends many workers across the state line to Orangetown and has less tooth loss than most of New Jersey.
At 9.4 years of the New York metro’s $99K median household income, the typical home (about $935K) costs more against local pay than in 86% of New Jersey towns; that ratio is one input to that grade. 74.1% of renter households pay 30% or more of their income for housing, against 51.6% across New Jersey.
A typical home in Norwood is worth about $935,000, up 5.8% in a year, 63% above the New Jersey typical home. In Norwood, the median rent is $2,094 a month, against $1,778 a month in New Jersey’s towns and $1,185 a month across U.S. towns. Norwood: nearly four in five households are owner-occupiers.
| Norwood | New Jersey towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median rent | $2,094 a month | $1,778 a month | $1,185 a month |
| Households that own their home | 79% | 77% | 73% |
Census ACS, 2020–24 · Zillow Home Value Index · Redfin Data Center
Its A for schools comes with a D− for cost of living: the typical home is worth about $935K.
Its two schools are below. The Norwood Public School District runs its public schools. The 2 public schools in Norwood teach 761 students between them.
| School | Level | Students | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Norwood Public SchoolLargest public elementary schoolGrades PK–8 | Grades PK–8 | 583 | A− |
| Northern Valley CentralLargest public high schoolGrades PK–12 | Grades PK–12 | 178 | – |
NCES · EDFacts · graded within NJ on state tests and graduation
Its widest gap with New Jersey is tooth loss: 3.2% of those 65+ have lost all their teeth, against 9.6% statewide. Against the 1,415 U.S. towns with household incomes like Norwood’s, it is healthier than 71%, a smaller edge than it has nationally: part of it comes with its incomes.
In Norwood, 7% of adults smoke cigarettes. 22% of Norwood adults have obesity, where New Jersey’s towns sit at 28% and U.S. towns at 35%. Also worth knowing: this New Jersey town does better than the New Jersey average on 19 of 32 CDC measures and worse on 2.
| Norwood | New Jersey towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Depression (CDC PLACES) | 13% | 16% | 23% |
| Obesity (CDC PLACES) | 22% | 28% | 35% |
| Frequent mental distress (CDC PLACES) | 12% | 15% | 17% |
| Smoke cigarettes (CDC PLACES) | 7% | 11% | 14% |
| What stands out | Norwood | NJ |
|---|---|---|
| Fewer older adults who have lost all their teeth | 3.2% | 9.6% |
| Fewer adults facing a utility shut-off | 3.4% | 7% |
| More adults who have had cancer | 9.1% | 7.5% |
CDC PLACES 2025 · modeled estimates for adults · CMS · HRSA
Norwood’s density of trails is 0.9 miles per square mile. 2.5 miles of trail.
Trails & parks © OpenStreetMap contributors · Conserved land: USGS PAD-US
FEMA rates its natural-hazard risk lower than 87% of New Jersey towns, with expected losses of about $262 per resident a year; that rating is what its A− for hazard risk is built on.
The risk rating from FEMA for Norwood comes to 22 of 100. 16 flood insurance claims have been paid here since 1979. Expected losses in Norwood break down as 69% from inland flooding and 10% from earthquakes. Federal disaster aid has reached households in Norwood after 8 declared disasters, most recently in 2021.
FEMA disaster declarations and aid · FEMA National Risk Index · OpenFEMA
July afternoons reach 86°, January nights drop to 23° and about 33 inches of snow falls in a winter.
NOAA U.S. Climate Normals, 1991–2020
23% of working residents cross a state line to work, Orangetown among the top destinations. Jobs based here grew from 1,720 in 2013 to 2,282.
Between 2013 and 2023, jobs in Norwood rose by 562, to 2,282. Most people who work leave Norwood to do it: just 6% work in town. Just over a fifth of workers work remotely from home here. The median commute is under 13 miles.
| Norwood | New Jersey towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median household income | $178,000 | $113,000 | $80,000 |
| Work from home | 21% | 16% | 11% |
| Below the poverty line | 2.8% | 6.1% | 9.6% |
| Average trip to work | 31 minutes | 30 minutes | 25 minutes |
Census LEHD 2023 · ACS
Most reported incidents are property crimes, mainly thefts. Norwood's reported crime rate is well below New Jersey's. Its rate of thefts and burglaries is 1.7 per 1,000 residents. No violent crimes were reported in 2025.
| Norwood | New Jersey towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Property crimes per 1,000 (2025) | 1.7 per 1,000 residents | 7.5 | 9.9 |
| Violent crimes per 1,000 (2025) | 0 per 1,000 residents | 0.7 | 1.6 |
FBI crime data, 2025 · crimes reported to police
63 within 15 miles of the center of Norwood
About 6 of every 100 Norwood residents are enrolled in college, about the same as New Jersey.
7 places in Norwood on the National Register of Historic Places.
Borough in Bergen County, New Jersey, US
Norwood is a borough in Bergen County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 United States census, the borough's population was 5,641, a decrease of 70 (−1.2%) from the 2010 census count of 5,711, which in turn reflected a decline of 40 (−0.7%) from the 5,751 counted in the 2000 census. Norwood was formed as a borough by an act of the New Jersey Legislature on March 14, 1905, from portions of Harrington Township.
From Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 · facts via Wikidata (CC0)
5 towns share a border with Norwood.
All 3 graded towns on its borders grade higher than its A; Closter (A) is closest.
| Town | NJ rank | Overall | Cost | Safety | Schools | Health |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Norwood | #64 | A | D− | — | A | A+ |
| Closter | #58 | A | D− | B+ | A | A+ |
| Harrington Park | #4 | A+ | D | A+ | A | A+ |
| Northvale | #49 | A | D | A | A− | A |
| Rockleigh | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Alpine | — | — | D− | B+ | A+ | A+ |
Alpine has fewer than 2,500 residents, so it gets subject grades but no overall grade. Norwood reports no FBI crime data of its own. Rockleigh isn’t graded (fewer than 1,000 residents, or not enough data). Compare Norwood with a neighbor →
Short answers, built from the data on this page.
Yes, by almost any measure. Norwood grades A overall, better than 92% of U.S. towns and #64 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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