Columbia is a small town where college students really create the town feel and character. So many small towns have lost population over the last 20-30 years that having the local college presence in the Columbia area, with all of the energy of the students filling area dorms and apartments each fall, really helps Columbia maintain a good economy.
The overall crime rate in Columbia is one of the lowest in the US. This makes it one of the safer places to live in the country in terms of crime.
One of the benefits of Columbia is that there is very little traffic. The average commute to work is 17.93 minutes, which is substantially less than the national average. Not only does this mean that the drive to work is less aggravating, but noise and pollution levels are lower as a result.
Being a small city, Columbia does not have a public transit system used by locals to get to and from work.
The percentage of adults in Columbia who are college-educated is close to the national average for all communities of 21.84%: 19.38% of the adults in Columbia have a bachelor's degree or advanced degree.
The per capita income in Columbia in 2022 was $25,563, which is middle income relative to Kentucky, and lower middle income relative to the rest of the US. This equates to an annual income of $102,252 for a family of four. However, Columbia contains both very wealthy and poor people as well.
The people who call Columbia home describe themselves as belonging to a variety of racial and ethnic groups. The greatest number of Columbia residents report their race to be White, followed by Black or African-American. Important ancestries of people in Columbia include English, German, Irish, European, and Scots-Irish.
The most common language spoken in Columbia is English. Other important languages spoken here include Spanish and Polish.
