Forest is a village in Hardin County, Ohio. It has 1,286 residents. Forest, Ohio has a quality-of-life score of 29 out of 100 (low), ranking #11,074 of 15,651 US cities and towns. Within Ohio it ranks #545 of 684 cities and towns. It ranks best on rent as share of income (low), public libraries (high) and home price to income ratio (low). It ranks worst on new business applications (low), dentists (low) and mental health care shortage (high).
29Low
Quality-of-life score
#11,074 of 15,651 cities and towns
Ohio
#545 of 684 in OH
Population
1,286 (2020-2024)
Land area
2 mi²
Density
769.1 /mi²
FIPS code
3927636
Percentile-based score (100 is the best in the country) from 72 of 80 indicators, with the default “Explorer” weights.
Each category averages its indicators' percentile scores among US cities and towns.
Safety62#5,957/15,637
Economy32#10,623/15,631
Housing90#1,432/14,977
Health19#12,584/15,609
Healthcare3#15,173/15,650
Environment44#8,699/15,453
Education34#10,345/15,649
Infrastructure58#6,630/15,650
Community26#11,601/15,651
Leisure & amenities8#14,414/15,651
Strengths · Weaknesses
Indicators where Forest, Ohio ranks highest and lowest among US cities and towns (score = percentile, 100 = best). Values marked “Hardin County value” are the county’s: the source publishes no figure for this city or town, and the county holding most of its residents stands in.
How each measure moved between two periods about five years apart, read against whether more or less is better, the published margin of error and the same change in other places.
Cities and towns like Forest, Ohio five years ago that improved
The places whose measures looked most like those of Forest, Ohio in the earlier period, ranked by how many measures improved beyond the margin of error, minus how many declined. A comparison of published data, not a forecast and not advice.
Who lives here
Age, race and education of residents, from the American Community Survey. Shares are of all residents (age), residents of every origin (race) or adults 25 and over (education).
Income
How household income is spread, not just the middle: each bar is the share of households in that income range.
Homes
Who owns and who rents, what homes cost, and what the housing stock looks like.
Getting to work
How workers travel to their job and how long it takes them.
Local businesses
Employer businesses and sole proprietors by industry, per resident and against the state and the nation. Counts of businesses next to counts of people, not a measure of demand.
Federal contracts performed here
Grants and other federal assistance are counted by county here, not split among cities: Forest is mostly in Hardin County.
Over about five years, Forest, Ohio improved on 2 of 12 measures with a comparison and declined on 0. 10 moved within the margin of error and 0 barely changed.
Earlier (2015-2019)
Latest (2020-2024)
Lower standingHigher standing
Position is the place's standing among cities and towns: further right is better, whichever way the measure counts.
Improved2
Unemployment−6.9 points9.5% → 2.5%
Unemployment rate
9.5% → 2.5%2015-2019 → 2020-2024
−6.9 pointsBeyond the margin of error (±5.1 points)
Standing among cities and towns: 15 → 87 (0 lowest, 100 highest)
More favourable than 98% of cities and towns
Broadband+12 points81.4% → 93.1%
Broadband subscriptions
81.4% → 93.1%2015-2019 → 2020-2024
+12 pointsBeyond the margin of error (±8.4 points)
Standing among cities and towns: 49 → 63 (0 lowest, 100 highest)
More favourable than 68% of cities and towns
Declined0
No measure declined by more than its margin of error.
All 12 measures
Change of every measure of Forest, Ohio between two periods about five years apart
Measure
Before
After
Change
Reading
Favourable vs peers
Average commute time
26.8 min2015-2019
22.4 min2020-2024
−4.4 min
Within the margin of error
87%
Bachelor's degree or higher
9.8%2015-2019
11.8%2020-2024
+2 points
Within the margin of error
43%
Broadband subscriptions
81.4%2015-2019
93.1%2020-2024
+12 points
Improved
68%
Effective property tax rate
1.09%2015-2019
0.99%2020-2024
−0.1 points
Within the margin of error
37%
High school diploma or higher
95.2%2015-2019
91.9%2020-2024
−3.4 points
Within the margin of error
10%
Home price to income ratio
1.9×2015-2019
2.0×2020-2024
+0.2×
Within the margin of error
70%
Income inequality (Gini index)
0.3522015-2019
0.3822020-2024
+0.031
Within the margin of error
26%
Median household income
$42,4342015-2019
$55,9382020-2024
+32%
Within the margin of error
59%
Poverty rate
11.1%2015-2019
11.5%2020-2024
+0.5 points
Within the margin of error
39%
Public transit commuters
0.0%2015-2019
0.0%2020-2024
0 points
Within the margin of error
60%
Rent as share of income
21.9%2015-2019
20.0%2020-2024
−1.9 points
Within the margin of error
68%
Unemployment rate
9.5%2015-2019
2.5%2020-2024
−6.9 points
Improved
98%
“Against peers” compares the change with the same change in the 14640 cities and towns that have the same two periods. It describes how common a change is, not why it happened.
Sources: American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates. Values are the latest and the one five years earlier of the same publisher dataset; datasets that changed publisher in between are never compared.
Survey estimates (American Community Survey) compare the two most recent 5-year windows that do not share years, so the margin of error of the difference holds. The 2015-2019 window predates the pandemic and 2020-2024 includes it.
A change counts only when it is larger than 1.645 times the square root of the two standard errors squared, summed (a 90% margin). Measures published without a margin must change by at least 5% to count.
“Against peers” compares the change with the same change in the 15651 cities and towns that have the same two periods. It describes how common a change is, not why it happened.
Standing is a percentile among the same places: 0 is the lowest value on the measure (or the worst when lower is better), 100 the best.
For comparison, Forest, Ohio itself moved +0 points in standing on average over the same 9 measures (standings of all places average about zero).
How the ranking works
Similarity is the root-mean-square difference of standings in the earlier period over the measures most places have. Places are ranked by measures that improved beyond the margin of error minus those that declined (a count that estimation noise in small places cannot inflate), then by the mean change of standing over the measures a place has in both periods. Only places with more improvements than declines and a rise in standing are listed. Standings are relative, so a place can improve in absolute terms and still lose standing.
Forest, Ohio is represented in the 119th Congress by these members.
The Census Bureau publishes business counts by county, not by city, so these are the figures of Hardin County, the county holding most of Forest's residents.
Hardin County has 421 employer establishments, 138 for every 10,000 residents (0.56× the US rate of 248; 0.64× Ohio's), with 6,502 paid employees at an average annual pay of $44,743. The Census Bureau also counts 1,490 nonemployer businesses, mostly sole proprietors.
Establishments
421
1,490 nonemployers
Per 10,000 residents
138
US 248 · Ohio 216
Paid employees
6,502
Average annual pay
$44,743
US $68,342
Employer establishments, employees, average pay and nonemployers of Hardin County by industry, with the density per resident against the nation
County Business Patterns (2023); Nonemployer Statistics (2024)
Per-resident figures divide by the population estimate of 2023: 30,411 residents here, 336,755,052 in the United States. County Business Patterns counts establishments in 2023; the Nonemployer Statistics count businesses in 2024.
“More than typical” is a density at least 1.25 times the nation's per resident, “fewer” at most 0.8 times, with at least 10 establishments. It compares counts of businesses with counts of people: it says nothing about demand, incomes, size, quality or profit, and visitors and commuters are not residents.
The Census Bureau adds noise to employment and payroll to protect confidentiality, and withholds some figures: an industry with few establishments can show employees or pay as unavailable.
Industries overlap: a narrower industry (full-service restaurants) is part of a broader one (restaurants), so the rows do not add up.
Industries follow the North American Industry Classification System; the two surveys use different editions (NAICS 2017 and 2022), which this page matches industry by industry.
In FY2026, an estimated -$9,066 of federal contract obligations were for work performed in Forest, Ohio: -$7.05 per resident (US $1,994).
Obligations
-$9,066
−103% vs FY2025
Per resident
-$7.05
US $1,994
Sole-source
—
US 30%
Single offer
—
US 8.8%
A signal is a reason to look closer, not evidence of wrongdoing: most sole-source awards are lawful and justified.
Agencies report each contract action's place of performance as a county and a ZIP code. A ZIP code's money is split among the cities it covers by the share of its land inside each (Census 2020 ZIP code tabulation areas); the part outside city limits stays with the county.
The place of performance is what the contracting agency reports, often the contractor's office rather than where the work happens.
Shares are of land, not of people or businesses: a ZIP code that is mostly rural land but has its offices in town gives the town less than it should.
ZIP codes that are not mapped areas (post office boxes, the unique ZIP codes of large federal sites and companies) stay with their county, unless one city covers nearly all of it.
Counts of actions and awards include those only partly in Forest, Ohio, so they do not add up across cities.
