Best PlacesAncona, IL Best Neighborhoods

2026–2027 edition · Data updated July 2026

Every neighborhood in and around Ancona, scored on 40 measures of daily life and ranked to fit what matters to you. This page is for people who live here or already know they want to. To work out which city fits you best, start with the best places to live tool.

See the map of best neighborhoods

Ancona ranks 28,007th of 50,333 U.S. towns on the BestNeighborhood index. Taxes pulls hardest against it, while it scores best on what local pay buys.

#28,007
of 50,333 towns
BestNeighborhood rank
Defaults weight crime safety, affordability, schools, and weather highest: the things hardest to change after a move
N/A
of 50,333 towns
Your rank
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The best neighborhoods in Ancona

Map of the best neighborhoods in the Ancona area, with better matches in green and worse matches in red
Click the map to explore
National median
Worse match Better match
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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.

Ancona's strengths and weaknesses

Each measure against the national median. Bars to the right beat the median; bars to the left fall short. Percentiles compare Ancona with other towns.

Where Ancona ranks high

  • Cost of living vs incomeBetter than 90% of towns
  • Household income$106,045 median, better than 88% of towns
  • Housing crash safetyBetter than 87% of towns
  • Big-city accessBetter than 86% of towns
  • Low vacancyBetter than 85% of towns

Where Ancona ranks low

  • Low income/sales/gas taxBetter than only 3% of towns
  • State fiscal healthBetter than only 4% of towns
  • Nice weatherabout 56 pleasant days a year, better than only 4% of towns
  • School gradeD, better than only 5% of towns
  • Low property taxBetter than only 8% of towns

What it costs to buy a home in Ancona

A household needs to earn about $58,000 a year to comfortably buy the median Ancona home, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate. That is below the area's own median income of $106,045, so a typical household can afford the median home outright.

Income to buy the median home
$58,000
a year, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate
Estimated monthly payment
$1,351
principal, interest, tax, and insurance on a $199,496 home
Median rent
$1,243
a month, across all home sizes

Where the monthly payment goes

Principal & interest$1,017
Property tax$268
Homeowners insurance$66

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 Ancona's effective rate of 1.61%, and insurance is estimated at 0.4% of home value a year.

Renting versus buying

At today's prices, buying tends to cost more than renting for about the first 6 years, then pulls ahead as rent keeps rising and the mortgage builds equity. The chart tracks the running cost of each.

Cumulative cost of renting versus owning the median home, first 10 years. Illustrative estimate.

Who lives in Ancona

Ancona runs older than the country, and households here run smaller than average.

Median age
50
older than the U.S. median of 41
Residents 65 and older
23%
versus 18% nationally
Average household
2.2
below the U.S. average of 2.6

Residents by age

Under 1816%
18 to 3411%
35 to 4922%
50 to 6428%
65 and older23%

Racial and ethnic makeup has its own map. See the race and diversity map for Ancona.


Who works in Ancona, and how

Work in Ancona centers on manufacturing and health care & social. Unemployment is low, and the job base is shrinking.

Work from home
10%
below the national average
Unemployment
1.1%
below the national average
Job growth
−5.0%
/y 2019-2023, slower than the national pace

Largest industries

Manufacturing13%
Health care & social12%
Transportation & warehousing10%
Admin & support services10%
Agriculture & forestry10%

How people get to work

  • Drive or carpool 86%
  • Work from home 10%
  • Transit, walk, or bike 4%

Life in Ancona

The map and measures below break down dining, culture, and green space by neighborhood across Ancona.


What the weather is like in Ancona, month by month

Ancona sees roughly 56 pleasant days a year. July highs average about 85 degrees. January highs sit near 34, with lows near 20. The comfortable stretch runs May through October.

Average daily high, mean, and low in degrees Fahrenheit, NOAA station data 2016 to 2025.
Show the monthly temperatures
MonthAvg highAvgAvg low
January34°26°20°
April63°51°41°
July85°74°65°
October67°55°45°

Flying in and out of Ancona

The nearest airport, Central Il Regional/Bloomington- Normal, is about 39 miles away and is a small airport. The nearest major hub is Chicago Midway International, about 77 miles away.

Nearest airport
BMI
Central Il Regional/Bloomington- Normal, about 39 miles
Airport size
Nonhub
203rd-busiest in the US, 13 nonstop destinations
Average drive
56 min
from the area, with no traffic

The best schools in and around Ancona

Schools across Ancona average a D, better than 5% of towns.

Top elementary schools

Top high schools

Grades come from K-12 test scores, with scores projected for schools missing data. See every Ancona school and its grade on SchoolGrade.


Ancona 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 Ancona against the other 50,332 towns.


Common questions about living in Ancona

Is Ancona a good place to live?

Using BestNeighborhood's default rankings, Ancona ranks 28,007th of 50,333 towns. It scores highest on what local pay buys, high incomes, and a stable housing market, and lowest on taxes and state finances. How good it is for you depends on which of those you weight most, which the map lets you set.

Is Ancona expensive to live in?

The median home is worth $199,496. The overall cost of living runs about 8% below the national average. Set against a $106,045 median income, cost of living beats 90% of towns.

Is Ancona safe?

Ancona is safer than 53% of towns. Safety varies a lot by neighborhood. Crime costs an estimated $225 per resident a year.


Compare Ancona with other towns


Sources and methodology

Every measure on this page is scored for each neighborhood, then rolled up to Ancona. Scores are absolute rather than ranked, which means a 60 in Ancona 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.

Ancona detail on BestNeighborhood maps:

  1. Walk Grade for Ancona: walkability, transit, and biking, measured on the real street network rather than by straight line distance.
  2. Noise in Ancona: road, rail, and aviation sound modeling calibrated against federal ground truth measurements.
  3. Conservative vs liberal map of Ancona: precinct level election results apportioned to neighborhoods.
  4. Mobile and cell coverage in Ancona: carrier by carrier coverage behind the cell score.

Ancona detail on related sites:

  1. CrimeGrade: neighborhood crime rates behind the crime safety score.
  2. ISPreports.org: provider by provider internet availability and advertised speeds.
  3. CoverageWatch: the car insurance premiums behind the cheap car insurance score.

Federal and public data:

  1. 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.
  2. NOAA Global Surface Summary of the Day: the daily station record behind the monthly temperatures and the pleasant-day count.
  3. FAA Passenger Boarding Data: airport size and annual passenger counts.
  4. Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey: the 30-year fixed rate used in the cost-to-buy estimate.
  5. FBI Crime Data Explorer: reported offenses behind the tangible crime cost estimate.
  6. U.S. EPA Air Quality System: five year average air quality index.
  7. FEMA National Risk Index: expected annual loss from natural hazards.
  8. CDC PLACES: disease burden, preventable risk, and barriers to care.
  9. National Center for Education Statistics: school enrollment and assessment inputs behind the school grade.
  10. FCC National Broadband Map: internet and wireless availability.
  11. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: employment and job growth behind the local economy score.
  12. Religious activity uses a proprietary religious signal measurement.