Best PlacesBay City, MI Best Neighborhoods
2026–2027 edition · Data updated July 2026
Every neighborhood in the Bay City metro, scored on 40 measures of daily life and ranked to fit what matters to you. The averages are not the whole story, and the strongest areas score well above them. To work out which city fits you best, start with the best places to live tool.
Photo by WeaponizingArchitecture, CC BY-SA 4.0, via commons
Bay City ranks 319th of 387 U.S. metro areas on the BestNeighborhood index. It ranks low mainly on internet speeds and a weak job market. It does better on civic engagement, which keeps it off the bottom.
The best neighborhoods in the Bay City 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 Bay City
The towns and districts of the Bay City 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.
Auburn
Incomes run higher, fewer homes sit empty, and prices have run up less.
Pinconning, Kawkawlin & Linwood
Streets are more car-dependent and biking is worse.
Essexville
More households have young kids, though local pay stretches less far.
Downtown Bay City
It is noisier and crime runs higher.
Scores across Bay City run from about the 7th to the 69th percentile nationally. The map is where that becomes a choice of area.
Bay City's strengths and weaknesses
Bay City ranks near the bottom because several of the basics fall short at once. Civic engagement, health care access, and walkability carry most of that.
The weak spots are broad rather than narrow: internet speeds, a weak job market, and car insurance costs all drag on the score. Those are area averages, and the map below shows which parts run well above them.
Where Bay City ranks high
- Voter turnoutBetter than 94% of metro areas
- Healthcare accessBetter than 89% of metro areas
- WalkabilityBetter than 81% of metro areas
- Air qualityBetter than 79% of metro areas
- QuietBetter than 77% of metro areas
Where Bay City ranks low
- Internet speedBetter than only 1% of metro areas
- Local economyBetter than only 1% of metro areas
- Cheap car insuranceBetter than only 6% of metro areas
- Household income$65,552 median, better than only 11% of metro areas
- School gradeC, better than only 18% of metro areas
What it costs to buy a home in Bay City
A household needs to earn about $44,000 a year to comfortably buy the median Bay City home, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate. That is below the area's own median income of $65,552, 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 Bay City's effective rate of 1.37%, 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.
Who lives in Bay City
Bay City runs older 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 Bay City.
Who works in Bay City, and how
Work in Bay City centers on health care & social and manufacturing. Unemployment sits above the national rate, and the job base is shrinking.
Largest industries
How people get to work
- Drive or carpool 87%
- Work from home 9%
- Transit, walk, or bike 4%
Life in Bay City
Bay City has fewer places to eat and drink per resident than most metro areas and more late-night spots per resident than 65% of metro areas. Dining, parks, and nightlife concentrates in some parts of Bay City and thins out in others, which the map shows.
Is Bay City growing, and who is moving in?
Bay City has lost about 3% of its population over the last decade. The largest inbound stream comes from Midland, MI.
Where new residents come from
Where people leaving Bay City go
Move counts are the latest county-to-county migration flows, each county grouped into its metro.
What the weather is like in Bay City, month by month
Bay City sees roughly 87 pleasant days a year. July highs average about 85 degrees. January highs sit near 33, with lows near 18. The comfortable stretch runs May through September.
Show the monthly temperatures
| Month | Avg high | Avg | Avg low |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | 33° | 26° | 18° |
| April | 59° | 46° | 35° |
| July | 85° | 73° | 61° |
| October | 65° | 53° | 43° |
Flying in and out of Bay City
The nearest airport, MBS International, is about 10 miles away and is a small airport. The nearest major hub is Detroit Metro Wayne County, about 100 miles away.
The best schools in and around Bay City
Schools across Bay City average a C, better than 18% of metro areas.
Top elementary schools
- Mackensen Elementary SchoolB · 48% proficient
- Bangor West Central SchoolC+ · 38% proficient
- Unionvillesebewaing Elem SchoolC+ · 37% proficient
Top middle schools
- Western Middle SchoolC+ · 35% proficient
- Christa Mcauliffe Middle SchoolC · 35% proficient
- Cramer Junior High SchoolC · 32% proficient
Top high schools
- John Glenn High SchoolB · 48% proficient
- Great Lakes Bay Early CollegeC+ · 40% proficient
- Bay City Western High SchoolC+ · 37% proficient
Grades come from K-12 test scores, with scores projected for schools missing data. See every Bay City school and its grade on SchoolGrade.
Bay City 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 Bay City against the other 386 metro areas.
Who Bay City suits
Common questions about living in Bay City
Is Bay City a good place to live?
Using BestNeighborhood's default rankings, Bay City ranks 319th of 387 metro areas. It scores highest on civic engagement, health care access, and walkability, and lowest on internet speeds and a weak job market. How good it is for you depends on which of those you weight most, which the map lets you set.
Is Bay City expensive to live in?
The median home is worth $155,511. The overall cost of living runs about 16% below the national average. Set against a $65,552 median income, cost of living beats 20% of metro areas.
Is Bay City safe?
Bay City is safer than 47% of metro areas. Safety varies a lot by neighborhood. Crime costs an estimated $393 per resident a year.
What is the weather like in Bay City?
July highs average about 85 degrees, and January highs near 33 with lows near 18. That works out to about 87 pleasant days a year, more than 49% of metro areas.
What are the best neighborhoods in Bay City?
Using the default rankings, the highest-scoring areas are Auburn, Pinconning, Kawkawlin & Linwood, and Essexville. The ranked list and the re-weightable map above let you re-sort them for your own priorities.
Is Bay City good for families?
Schools beat 18% of metro areas, crime safety beats 47%, and childcare runs $851 a month.
Is Bay City good for remote workers?
Cost of living against local pay beats 20% of metro areas, though advertised internet speeds beat only 1% of metro areas. About 9% of workers already work from home.
Compare Bay City with other metro areas
Sources and methodology
Every measure on this page is scored for each neighborhood, then rolled up to Bay City. Scores are absolute rather than ranked, which means a 60 in Bay City 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.
Bay City detail on BestNeighborhood maps:
- Walk Grade for Bay City: walkability, transit, and biking, measured on the real street network rather than by straight line distance.
- Noise in Bay City: road, rail, and aviation sound modeling calibrated against federal ground truth measurements.
- Conservative vs liberal map of Bay City: precinct level election results apportioned to neighborhoods.
- Mobile and cell coverage in Bay City: carrier by carrier coverage behind the cell score.
Bay City 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.