Newark, NJ

ZIP code 07103 is assigned to Newark, NJ, and falls within Essex County. Like every US postal code, it began as a mail-routing device rather than a geographic boundary — the US Postal Service groups delivery routes under a single code so carriers and sorting equipment can process mail efficiently. Today it also serves as a practical shorthand for the area itself: roughly 36,733 people live inside it.

At 17,069 residents per square mile spread over 2.152 square miles, 07103 reads as a dense urban area. It is a populous postal code, and density shapes almost everything else on this page — how people get to work, whether they own or rent, and what housing costs.

Household earnings are well below the national median. At $42,397, 07103 ranks among the lower-income postal codes, ahead of 8% of them. The US median for comparison is $70,109. Bear in mind that median income describes the midpoint household, not the average — it is not pulled upward by a handful of very high earners the way a mean would be.

Housing in 07103 costs close to the national median. A typical home is valued at $259,300 against a US median of $207,500, and median gross rent runs $1,289 a month. This is firmly renter territory — 76.6% of occupied homes are rented, a pattern typical of city centres, student areas and neighbourhoods with a lot of apartment stock.

The building stock is dominated by detached single-family houses, which account for 36.6% of housing units here. The median construction year is 1990, making the housing here from the later twentieth century.

The population skews younger than the country as a whole, with a median age of 31.8 against 42 nationally. The average household holds 2.86 people, and 61.0% are family households.

Getting to work takes 32.9 minutes on average one way. The dominant mode is drove alone at 55.5% of workers, while 19.9% take public transit. Commute patterns are one of the better proxies for how a place actually functions day to day.

Beyond addressing mail, 07103 does a lot of quiet administrative work. Retailers use it to calculate shipping and sales tax at checkout. Insurers use it to set premiums, since risk profiles vary geographically. Employers and marketers use it to define service areas. Government agencies use it to route benefits and organise reporting. If you have ever been asked for a postal code by a form that clearly does not intend to send you anything, this is why.

For anyone weighing a move, 07103 offers a compact profile of Newark: 36,733 residents, a median household income of $42,397, 20.6% of adults holding a bachelor's degree or higher, and an unemployment rate of 9.1%. A handful of figures like these answer more relocation questions than most neighbourhood guides do.

One caution worth repeating: a postal code is not a neighbourhood. 07103 may cover parts of several distinct areas, and a single neighbourhood in Newark may be split across more than one code. Boundaries also shift as USPS adjusts delivery routes. Treat the figures here as describing a delivery area, which is what they actually measure.