Best PlacesCrescent City, IL Best Neighborhoods

2026–2027 edition · Data updated July 2026

Every neighborhood in and around Crescent City, scored on 40 measures of daily life and ranked to fit what matters to you. Several measures below read low, and the ranked lists name which ones. To work out which city fits you best, start with the best places to live tool.

See the map of best neighborhoods

Crescent City ranks 38,464th of 50,333 U.S. towns on the BestNeighborhood index. Taxes pulls hardest against it, while it scores best on fast internet.

#38,464
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
Set your priorities to see your rank

The best neighborhoods in Crescent City

Map of the best neighborhoods in the Crescent City area, with better matches in green and worse matches in red
Click the map to explore
National median
Worse match Better match
Colorblind friendly off
Popular priorities:

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.

Crescent City'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 Crescent City with other towns.

Where Crescent City ranks high

  • Internet speedBetter than 90% of towns
  • WalkabilityBetter than 88% of towns
  • Big-city accessBetter than 87% of towns
  • BikingBetter than 77% of towns
  • State infrastructureBetter than 77% of towns

Where Crescent City ranks low

  • Low income/sales/gas taxBetter than only 3% of towns
  • State fiscal healthBetter than only 4% of towns
  • Local economyBetter than only 4% of towns
  • Low property taxBetter than only 12% of towns
  • School gradeD+, better than only 18% of towns

What it costs to buy a home in Crescent City

A household needs to earn about $44,000 a year to comfortably buy the median Crescent City home, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate. That is below the area's own median income of $57,078, so a typical household can afford the median home outright.

Income to buy the median home
$44,000
a year, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate
Estimated monthly payment
$1,025
principal, interest, tax, and insurance on a $154,775 home
Median rent
$873
a month, across all home sizes

Where the monthly payment goes

Principal & interest$789
Property tax$184
Homeowners insurance$52

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 Crescent City's effective rate of 1.43%, 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 Crescent City

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

Median age
58
older than the U.S. median of 41
Residents 65 and older
38%
versus 18% nationally
Average household
2.1
below the U.S. average of 2.6

Residents by age

Under 1813%
18 to 3414%
35 to 4917%
50 to 6419%
65 and older38%

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


Who works in Crescent City, and how

Work in Crescent City centers on health care & social and retail trade. Unemployment runs well above the national rate, and jobs are growing.

Work from home
9%
below the national average
Unemployment
14.1%
above the national average
Job growth
+2.7%
/y 2019-2023, near the national pace

Largest industries

Health care & social17%
Retail trade11%
Finance & insurance10%
Education10%
Public administration10%

How people get to work

  • Drive or carpool 87%
  • Work from home 9%
  • Transit, walk, or bike 4%

Life in Crescent City

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


What the weather is like in Crescent City, month by month

Crescent City sees roughly 71 pleasant days a year. July highs average about 84 degrees. January highs sit near 33, 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
January33°26°20°
April62°50°40°
July84°74°65°
October66°55°45°

Flying in and out of Crescent City

The nearest airport, University of Illinois/Willard, is about 55 miles away and is a small airport. The nearest major hub is Chicago Midway International, about 70 miles away.

Nearest airport
CMI
University of Illinois/Willard, about 55 miles
Airport size
Nonhub
244th-busiest in the US, 6 nonstop destinations
Average drive
79 min
from the area, with no traffic

The best schools in and around Crescent City

Schools across Crescent City average a D+, better than 18% of towns.

Top elementary schools

Top middle schools

Top high schools

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


Crescent 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 Crescent City against the other 50,332 towns.


Common questions about living in Crescent City

Is Crescent City a good place to live?

Using BestNeighborhood's default rankings, Crescent City ranks 38,464th of 50,333 towns. It scores highest on fast internet, walkability, and big-city access, 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 Crescent City expensive to live in?

The median home is worth $154,775. The overall cost of living runs about 11% below the national average. Set against a $57,078 median income, cost of living beats 20% of towns.

Is Crescent City safe?

Crescent City is safer than 48% of towns. Safety varies a lot by neighborhood. Crime costs an estimated $238 per resident a year.


Compare Crescent City with other towns


Sources and methodology

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

Crescent City detail on BestNeighborhood maps:

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

Crescent City 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.