Who lives in Jacksonville, North Carolina?

Jacksonville is the commercial heart of Onslow County, wrapped around the New River between the Crystal Coast and Topsail Island, and it exists in its current form because of Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune and MCAS New River. The military presence rewrote the place. What was an 800-person ferry town in 1940 now holds about 71,908 people, and the age curve is unlike almost anywhere else in the country: a mean age near 33.6, with roughly 44% of residents aged 18 to 24 against about 13% nationally, and the 35-and-up bands hollowed out to a fraction of the typical share.

This is an active-duty population caught mid-tour. About 56% are Gen Z, three times the national rate, and men outnumber women by roughly six to four, the signature of barracks and junior-enlisted housing rather than settled family households. They cycle through on orders, which is why the city reads young and male in a way that no organic suburb ever would. The behavior that follows from a transient, early-career, government-paycheck base is the real story here.

Decisions here tilt toward the gut. Impulsive buyers run several points above the national share and the careful, over-researched end thins out, which fits a young population spending a steady direct-deposit paycheck without much that needs deliberating. On personality the city sits close to the national mean across most of the Big Five, so the temperament is fairly ordinary. The one real lean is toward slightly lower warmth and cooperation than average, the kind of guardedness you would expect from people who rotate duty stations every couple of years and keep their circle small.

Loyalty to local shops is thin. About 20% report no particular preference for local business, double the national figure, and the strong-preference end falls well below average. A population that arrives on orders and may ship out within a tour does not put down roots with the corner store, and national chains near the gates carry the convenience. Skepticism toward big companies also runs high: the cynical share is up near 19% and outright trust is scarce, a posture that squares with young people who deal with bureaucracy daily and read corporate messaging with a raised eyebrow.

This is a phone-first, short-video audience. TikTok reach is nearly double the national rate and short-form video is the runaway content preference, while Facebook lands well below average, the inverse of an older suburb. Instagram and YouTube both carry weight, and gaming is close to universal here, with the no-gaming share at less than half the national figure, a near-given for a young, heavily male base.

Reach them where they already scroll between duty hours: vertical video, gaming environments, and Instagram, with Facebook treated as a secondary channel at best.

The loudest signal in the entire profile is what these households do not do with money: about 48% are non-savers, close to twice the national rate, and the aggressive-saver share collapses to a third of typical. Roughly half are also non-investors. This is a young, single, low-base population living on junior-enlisted pay, where a steady check leaves little to set aside and excellent credit is rare, held by only about 8% against nearly 25% nationally.

Buying happens in a steady monthly rhythm rather than in big occasional splurges, with the monthly band well above the national share. Price leads motivation, as it does most places, so the realistic play is affordable, regular spend rather than aspirational big-ticket commitments these wallets cannot carry.

Health here runs reactive rather than planned. Preventive care is the third loudest signal in the city: only about 25% manage their health preventively against roughly 42% nationally, and comprehensive insurance is similarly scarce, which tracks with a population leaning on base medical and the fix-it-when- it-breaks habits of people in their early twenties. Sleep gets shortchanged hard, with about 40% treating it as low priority, nearly double the norm, a fingerprint of duty schedules, watch rotations, and late nights off-base.

Most residents are health-aware without acting on it, clustering in the middle bands rather than the obsessive end. Openness to talking about mental wellness sits right at the national norm, neither closed off nor unusually forward.