Best PlacesAmes, IA Best Neighborhoods
2026–2027 edition · Data updated July 2026
Every neighborhood in the Ames metro, scored on 40 measures of daily life and ranked to fit what matters to you. Costs and crime read low across the board, which puts the choice down to which part suits you. To work out which city fits you best, start with the best places to live tool.
Photo by Tim Kiser ( w:User:Malepheasant ), CC BY-SA 2.5, via commons
Ames ranks 19th of 387 U.S. metro areas on the BestNeighborhood index. It earns the spot by being affordable and steady rather than flashy: everyday costs run well below the national average, and crime is low. The trade is noise: the nearest large city and its jobs, flights, and culture are a drive away.
The best neighborhoods in the Ames metro
BestNeighborhood is the only ranking that scores 40 measures of daily life neighborhood by neighborhood and lets you re-weight every one of them yourself.
The best areas in Ames
The towns and districts of the Ames metro, ranked by the BestNeighborhood standard score across every neighborhood in each, highest scoring first. Each note says how that part differs from the rest of the metro.
Story City
More households have young kids, local pay stretches further, and prices have run up less.
Nevada
Fewer adults hold degrees and biking is worse.
Madrid & Huxley
It is quieter, though streets are more car-dependent.
Downtown Ames
Transit reaches more jobs, though incomes run lower.
Boone & Ogden
More residents vote, though more homes sit empty.
Scores across Ames run from about the 32nd to the 100th percentile nationally. The map is where that becomes a choice of area.
Ames' strengths and weaknesses
Ames ranks where it does because the parts of life that are hardest to change mostly work here. Good schools, an educated workforce, and state finances carry most of that.
The drawbacks are real but narrow. Noise, property taxes, and tree cover hold the score down. The measures below break that down, and the map shows how much of it holds street by street.
Where Ames ranks high
- School gradeA−, better than 97% of metro areas
- Educational attainmentBetter than 96% of metro areas
- State fiscal healthBetter than 95% of metro areas
- Short commute18.8 minutes each way, better than 93% of metro areas
- BikingBetter than 90% of metro areas
Where Ames ranks low
- QuietBetter than only 10% of metro areas
- Low property taxBetter than only 20% of metro areas
- Tree shadeBetter than only 22% of metro areas
- Big-city accessBetter than only 23% of metro areas
- Household income$78,123 median, better than only 45% of metro areas
What it costs to buy a home in Ames
A household needs to earn about $75,000 a year to comfortably buy the median Ames home, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate. That is below the area's own median income of $78,123, so a typical household can afford the median home outright.
Where the monthly payment goes
Assumes a 20% down payment, a 6.6% 30-year fixed rate, and a 28% share of income going to the payment. The rate is the 2026-07-23 30-year fixed average, series MORTGAGE30US from the St. Louis Fed, which publishes Freddie Mac's weekly survey. Against the median home value, property tax uses Ames' effective rate of 1.37%, and insurance is estimated at 0.4% of home value a year.
Renting versus buying
At today's prices and rents, renting stays cheaper than buying across the first 10 years here, so the case for buying rests on staying much longer or on prices rising faster than assumed. The chart tracks the running cost of each.
Who lives in Ames
Ames runs younger than the country, and households here run smaller than average.
Residents by age
Racial and ethnic makeup has its own map. See the race and diversity map for Ames.
Who works in Ames, and how
Work in Ames centers on education and health care & social. Unemployment is low, and jobs are growing.
Largest industries
How people get to work
- Drive or carpool 76%
- Work from home 12%
- Transit, walk, or bike 13%
Life in Ames
Ames has fewer places to eat and drink per resident than most metro areas and more parkland per resident than 88% of metro areas. Dining, parks, and nightlife concentrates in some parts of Ames and thins out in others, which the map shows.
Is Ames growing, and who is moving in?
Ames has grown about 6% over the last decade. The largest inbound stream comes from Des Moines, IA.
Where new residents come from
Where people leaving Ames go
Move counts are the latest county-to-county migration flows, each county grouped into its metro.
What the weather is like in Ames, month by month
Ames sees roughly 101 pleasant days a year. July highs average about 86 degrees. January highs sit near 30, with lows near 14. The comfortable stretch runs May through September.
Show the monthly temperatures
| Month | Avg high | Avg | Avg low |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | 30° | 21° | 14° |
| April | 63° | 49° | 39° |
| July | 86° | 75° | 64° |
| October | 65° | 52° | 42° |
Flying in and out of Ames
The nearest airport, Des Moines International, is about 34 miles away and is a small airport. The nearest major hub is Eppley Airfield, about 126 miles away.
The best schools in and around Ames
Schools across Ames average an A−, better than 97% of metro areas.
Top elementary schools
- Gilbert Intermediate SchoolA+ · 84% proficient
- United Community SchoolA+ · 77% proficient
- Fellows Elementary SchoolA+ · 77% proficient
Top middle schools
- Gilbert Middle SchoolA+ · 87% proficient
- Ballard Middle SchoolA+ · 84% proficient
- Ames Middle SchoolA+ · 69% proficient
Top high schools
- Gilbert High SchoolA+ · 89% proficient
- Woodward-granger High SchoolA · 78% proficient
- South Hamilton Middle And High SchoolA · 77% proficient
Grades come from K-12 test scores, with scores projected for schools missing data. See every Ames school and its grade on SchoolGrade.
Ames measure by measure
Cards are ordered by how much each measure matters to you, so the ones you weighted highest come first. Expand to see every measure. Percentages compare Ames against the other 386 metro areas.
Who Ames suits
Retirees
The weather beats 60% of metro areas and health care access beats 72%.
Common questions about living in Ames
Is Ames a good place to live?
Using BestNeighborhood's default rankings, Ames ranks 19th of 387 metro areas. It scores highest on good schools, an educated workforce, and state finances, and lowest on noise and property taxes. How good it is for you depends on which of those you weight most, which the map lets you set.
Is Ames expensive to live in?
The median home is worth $266,874. The overall cost of living runs about 12% below the national average. Set against a $78,123 median income, cost of living beats 53% of metro areas.
Is Ames safe?
Yes, Ames is safer than 90% of metro areas. Safety varies a lot by neighborhood. Crime costs an estimated $228 per resident a year.
What is the weather like in Ames?
July highs average about 86 degrees, and January highs near 30 with lows near 14. That works out to about 101 pleasant days a year, more than 60% of metro areas.
What are the best neighborhoods in Ames?
Using the default rankings, the highest-scoring areas are Story City, Nevada, and Madrid & Huxley. The ranked list and the re-weightable map above let you re-sort them for your own priorities.
Is Ames good for families?
Schools beat 97% of metro areas, crime safety beats 90%, and childcare runs $739 a month.
Is Ames good for remote workers?
Cost of living against local pay beats 53% of metro areas, though advertised internet speeds beat only 56% of metro areas. About 12% of workers already work from home.
Compare Ames with other metro areas
Sources and methodology
Every measure on this page is scored for each neighborhood, then rolled up to Ames. Scores are absolute rather than ranked, which means a 60 in Ames represents the same real quantity as a 60 anywhere else, and the ranking is a weighted average of those absolutes. The map colors come from a national scale calibrated against a population weighted random sample of 5,000 neighborhoods. That absolute scoring is what no other places-to-live ranking does: it puts a single neighborhood, a town, a metro, and a state on one scale, so the same 40 measures answer both which metro to move to and which street inside it to buy on. Read the full methodology.
Ames detail on BestNeighborhood maps:
- Walk Grade for Ames: walkability, transit, and biking, measured on the real street network rather than by straight line distance.
- Noise in Ames: road, rail, and aviation sound modeling calibrated against federal ground truth measurements.
- Conservative vs liberal map of Ames: precinct level election results apportioned to neighborhoods.
- Mobile and cell coverage in Ames: carrier by carrier coverage behind the cell score.
Ames detail on related sites:
- CrimeGrade: neighborhood crime rates behind the crime safety score.
- ISPreports.org: provider by provider internet availability and advertised speeds.
- CoverageWatch: the car insurance premiums behind the cheap car insurance score.
Federal and public data:
- U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey: income, home value, rent, vacancy, commute time and mode, educational attainment, home age, age structure, household type, industry, and race.
- U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program: population growth and net migration behind the population-change section.
- NOAA Global Surface Summary of the Day: the daily station record behind the monthly temperatures and the pleasant-day count.
- FAA Passenger Boarding Data: airport size and annual passenger counts.
- Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey: the 30-year fixed rate used in the cost-to-buy estimate.
- FBI Crime Data Explorer: reported offenses behind the tangible crime cost estimate.
- U.S. EPA Air Quality System: five year average air quality index.
- FEMA National Risk Index: expected annual loss from natural hazards.
- CDC PLACES: disease burden, preventable risk, and barriers to care.
- National Center for Education Statistics: school enrollment and assessment inputs behind the school grade.
- FCC National Broadband Map: internet and wireless availability.
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: employment and job growth behind the local economy score.
- Religious activity uses a proprietary religious signal measurement.
Your priorities
Move a slider to say how much a measure matters. Zero turns it off.