Best PlacesChampaign, IL Best Neighborhoods
2026–2027 edition · Data updated July 2026
Every neighborhood in the Champaign 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 Rufus46, CC BY-SA 3.0, via commons
Champaign ranks 269th of 387 U.S. metro areas on the BestNeighborhood index. It ranks low mainly on the schools and state finances. It does better on short commutes, which keeps it off the bottom.
The best neighborhoods in the Champaign 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 Champaign
The towns and districts of the Champaign 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.
Mahomet
More households have young kids, crime runs lower, and incomes run higher.
Monticello
Local pay stretches further and prices have run up less.
Savoy & Tolono
More adults hold degrees and fewer homes sit empty.
Gibson City & Fisher
More residents vote, though biking is worse.
St. Joseph
Streets are more car-dependent.
Downtown Champaign
Commutes are shorter, though health care is harder to reach.
Rantoul & Paxton
Homes cost less, though health outcomes score lower.
Champaign shows why a single number is not enough. Some neighborhoods score in the bottom 3% of the country and others in the top 6%. Pick the area first, then the home.
Champaign's strengths and weaknesses
Champaign lands in the middle because its strengths and weaknesses roughly balance. Short commutes, an educated workforce, and walkability carry most of that.
The one real hole is the schools, near the bottom of the country. State finances and taxes also cost it ground. The detail is below, and the map is where it turns into a choice of neighborhood rather than just a place.
Where Champaign ranks high
- Short commute17.9 minutes each way, better than 96% of metro areas
- Educational attainmentBetter than 94% of metro areas
- WalkabilityBetter than 93% of metro areas
- Health outlookBetter than 86% of metro areas
- BikingBetter than 80% of metro areas
Where Champaign ranks low
- School gradeD, better than only 1% of metro areas
- State fiscal healthBetter than only 2% of metro areas
- Low income/sales/gas taxBetter than only 2% of metro areas
- Low property taxBetter than only 3% of metro areas
- Cheap childcare$1,244 a month, better than only 18% of metro areas
What it costs to buy a home in Champaign
A household needs to earn about $63,000 a year to comfortably buy the median Champaign home, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate. That is below the area's own median income of $74,302, 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 Champaign's effective rate of 1.99%, 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 Champaign
Champaign 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 Champaign.
Who works in Champaign, and how
Work in Champaign centers on education 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 70%
- Work from home 15%
- Transit, walk, or bike 15%
Life in Champaign
Champaign has more parkland per resident than 65% of metro areas and more late-night spots per resident than 98% of metro areas. Dining, parks, and nightlife concentrates in some parts of Champaign and thins out in others, which the map shows.
Is Champaign growing, and who is moving in?
Champaign has grown about 2% over the last decade. The largest inbound stream comes from Chicago, IL.
Where new residents come from
Where people leaving Champaign go
Move counts are the latest county-to-county migration flows, each county grouped into its metro.
What the weather is like in Champaign, month by month
Champaign sees roughly 78 pleasant days a year. July highs average about 85 degrees. January highs sit near 36, with lows near 21. The comfortable stretch runs May through October.
Show the monthly temperatures
| Month | Avg high | Avg | Avg low |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | 36° | 28° | 21° |
| April | 65° | 52° | 42° |
| July | 85° | 75° | 66° |
| October | 69° | 56° | 46° |
Flying in and out of Champaign
The nearest airport, University of Illinois/Willard, is about 5 miles away and is a small airport. The nearest major hub is Indianapolis International, about 108 miles away.
The best schools in and around Champaign
Schools across Champaign average a D, better than 1% of metro areas.
Top elementary schools
- St Joseph Elem SchoolB · 50% proficient
- Bottenfield Elem SchoolC · 35% proficient
- Lincoln Trail Elem SchoolC · 32% proficient
Top middle schools
- St Joseph Middle SchoolB+ · 51% proficient
- Prairieview-ogden Jr High SchB · 45% proficient
- Mahomet-seymour Jr High SchoolC+ · 36% proficient
Top high schools
- Mahomet-seymour High SchoolB+ · 52% proficient
- St Joseph-ogden High SchoolB− · 45% proficient
- Unity High SchoolB− · 43% proficient
Grades come from K-12 test scores, with scores projected for schools missing data. See every Champaign school and its grade on SchoolGrade.
Champaign 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 Champaign against the other 386 metro areas.
Who Champaign suits
Retirees
Set weather, quiet, and health care weights on the map to test the fit.
Common questions about living in Champaign
Is Champaign a good place to live?
Using BestNeighborhood's default rankings, Champaign ranks 269th of 387 metro areas. It scores highest on short commutes, an educated workforce, and walkability, and lowest on the schools and state finances. How good it is for you depends on which of those you weight most, which the map lets you set.
Is Champaign expensive to live in?
The median home is worth $207,134. The overall cost of living runs about 12% below the national average. Set against a $74,302 median income, cost of living beats 40% of metro areas.
Is Champaign safe?
Champaign is safer than 21% of metro areas. Safety varies a lot by neighborhood. Crime costs an estimated $339 per resident a year.
What is the weather like in Champaign?
July highs average about 85 degrees, and January highs near 36 with lows near 21. That works out to about 78 pleasant days a year, more than 37% of metro areas.
What are the best neighborhoods in Champaign?
Using the default rankings, the highest-scoring areas are Mahomet, Monticello, and Savoy & Tolono. The ranked list and the re-weightable map above let you re-sort them for your own priorities.
Is Champaign good for families?
Schools beat 1% of metro areas, crime safety beats 21%, and childcare runs $1,244 a month.
Is Champaign good for remote workers?
Cost of living against local pay beats 40% of metro areas, though advertised internet speeds beat only 52% of metro areas. About 15% of workers already work from home.
Compare Champaign with other metro areas
Sources and methodology
Every measure on this page is scored for each neighborhood, then rolled up to Champaign. Scores are absolute rather than ranked, which means a 60 in Champaign 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.
Champaign detail on BestNeighborhood maps:
- Walk Grade for Champaign: walkability, transit, and biking, measured on the real street network rather than by straight line distance.
- Noise in Champaign: road, rail, and aviation sound modeling calibrated against federal ground truth measurements.
- Conservative vs liberal map of Champaign: precinct level election results apportioned to neighborhoods.
- Mobile and cell coverage in Champaign: carrier by carrier coverage behind the cell score.
Champaign 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.