Best PlacesCanton, OH Best Neighborhoods
2026–2027 edition · Data updated July 2026
Every neighborhood in the Canton 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
Canton ranks 164th of 387 U.S. metro areas on the BestNeighborhood index. It ranks low mainly on the weather and health outcomes. It does better on cheap car insurance, which keeps it off the bottom.
The best neighborhoods in the Canton 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 Canton
The towns and districts of the Canton 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.
Canal Fulton
More adults hold degrees, local pay stretches further, and incomes run higher.
North Canton, Uniontown & Hartville
Fewer homes sit empty and more residents vote.
Alliance & Louisville
More households have young kids.
Massillon
Streets are more walkable and transit reaches more jobs.
Navarre
Crime runs lower, though it is noisier.
Carrollton, Minerva & Malvern
Tree cover is thicker, though biking is worse.
East Sparta
Schools score lower and health care is harder to reach.
Downtown Canton
Homes cost less, though health outcomes score lower.
Canton shows why a single number is not enough. Some neighborhoods score in the bottom 3% of the country and others in the top 1%. Pick the area first, then the home.
Canton's strengths and weaknesses
Canton lands in the middle because its strengths and weaknesses roughly balance. Cheap car insurance, good schools, and low disaster risk carry most of that.
The drawbacks are real but narrow. The weather, health outcomes, and internet speeds hold the score down. The detail is below, and the map is where it turns into a choice of neighborhood rather than just a place.
Where Canton ranks high
- Cheap car insuranceBetter than 96% of metro areas
- School gradeA−, better than 93% of metro areas
- Disaster safetyBetter than 81% of metro areas
- Housing crash safetyBetter than 77% of metro areas
- Voter turnoutBetter than 76% of metro areas
Where Canton ranks low
- Nice weatherabout 64 pleasant days a year, better than only 10% of metro areas
- Health outlookBetter than only 13% of metro areas
- Internet speedBetter than only 20% of metro areas
- Air qualityBetter than only 26% of metro areas
- Local economyBetter than only 28% of metro areas
What it costs to buy a home in Canton
A household needs to earn about $54,000 a year to comfortably buy the median Canton home, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate. That is below the area's own median income of $73,337, 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 Canton's effective rate of 1.20%, 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 8 years, then pulls ahead as rent keeps rising and the mortgage builds equity. The chart tracks the running cost of each.
Who lives in Canton
Canton 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 Canton.
Who works in Canton, and how
Work in Canton centers on manufacturing and health care & social. Unemployment is close to the national rate, and employment has held roughly flat.
Largest industries
How people get to work
- Drive or carpool 83%
- Work from home 12%
- Transit, walk, or bike 5%
Life in Canton
Canton has fewer places to eat and drink per resident than most metro areas and more parkland per resident than 80% of metro areas. Dining, parks, and nightlife concentrates in some parts of Canton and thins out in others, which the map shows.
Is Canton growing, and who is moving in?
Canton has lost about 1% of its population over the last decade. The largest inbound stream comes from Akron, OH.
Where new residents come from
Where people leaving Canton go
Move counts are the latest county-to-county migration flows, each county grouped into its metro.
What the weather is like in Canton, month by month
Canton sees roughly 64 pleasant days a year. July highs average about 87 degrees. January highs sit near 38, with lows near 21. The comfortable stretch runs May through October.
Show the monthly temperatures
| Month | Avg high | Avg | Avg low |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | 38° | 29° | 21° |
| April | 64° | 51° | 39° |
| July | 87° | 75° | 64° |
| October | 68° | 56° | 46° |
Flying in and out of Canton
The nearest airport, Akron-Canton Regional, is about 7 miles away and is a small airport. The nearest major hub is Cleveland-Hopkins International, about 47 miles away.
The best schools in and around Canton
Schools across Canton average an A−, better than 93% of metro areas.
Top elementary schools
- Sauder Elementary SchoolA+ · 85% proficient
- Lake Elementary SchoolA+ · 85% proficient
- Greentown Intermediate SchoolA+ · 84% proficient
Top middle schools
- North Canton Middle SchoolA+ · 79% proficient
- Jackson Memorial Middle SchoolA+ · 78% proficient
- Glenwood Intermediate SchoolA · 67% proficient
Top high schools
- Lake Middle / High SchoolA+ · 82% proficient
- Hoover High SchoolA · 78% proficient
- Jackson High SchoolA · 75% proficient
Grades come from K-12 test scores, with scores projected for schools missing data. See every Canton school and its grade on SchoolGrade.
Canton 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 Canton against the other 386 metro areas.
Who Canton suits
Common questions about living in Canton
Is Canton a good place to live?
Using BestNeighborhood's default rankings, Canton ranks 164th of 387 metro areas. It scores highest on cheap car insurance, good schools, and low disaster risk, and lowest on the weather and health outcomes. How good it is for you depends on which of those you weight most, which the map lets you set.
Is Canton expensive to live in?
The median home is worth $194,372. The overall cost of living runs about 18% below the national average. Set against a $73,337 median income, cost of living beats 53% of metro areas.
Is Canton safe?
Canton is safer than 31% of metro areas. Safety varies a lot by neighborhood. Crime costs an estimated $359 per resident a year.
What is the weather like in Canton?
July highs average about 87 degrees, and January highs near 38 with lows near 21. That works out to about 64 pleasant days a year, more than 10% of metro areas.
What are the best neighborhoods in Canton?
Using the default rankings, the highest-scoring areas are Canal Fulton, North Canton, Uniontown & Hartville, and Alliance & Louisville. The ranked list and the re-weightable map above let you re-sort them for your own priorities.
Is Canton good for families?
Schools beat 93% of metro areas, crime safety beats 31%, and childcare runs $946 a month.
Is Canton good for remote workers?
Cost of living against local pay beats 53% of metro areas, though advertised internet speeds beat only 20% of metro areas. About 12% of workers already work from home.
Compare Canton with other metro areas
Sources and methodology
Every measure on this page is scored for each neighborhood, then rolled up to Canton. Scores are absolute rather than ranked, which means a 60 in Canton 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.
Canton detail on BestNeighborhood maps:
- Walk Grade for Canton: walkability, transit, and biking, measured on the real street network rather than by straight line distance.
- Noise in Canton: road, rail, and aviation sound modeling calibrated against federal ground truth measurements.
- Conservative vs liberal map of Canton: precinct level election results apportioned to neighborhoods.
- Mobile and cell coverage in Canton: carrier by carrier coverage behind the cell score.
Canton 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.