Best PlacesDubuque, IA Best Neighborhoods
2026–2027 edition · Data updated July 2026
Every neighborhood in the Dubuque 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.
Dubuque ranks 20th 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 short commutes, which keeps it off the bottom.
The best neighborhoods in the Dubuque 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 Dubuque
The towns and districts of the Dubuque 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.
Peosta
Incomes run higher, local pay stretches further, and more households have young kids.
Asbury
More residents vote, though homes cost more.
Epworth, Cascade & Farley
Biking is worse and tree cover is thinner.
Dyersville
Schools score higher, though fewer adults hold degrees.
Downtown Dubuque
Crime runs higher and health care is harder to reach.
Scores across Dubuque run from about the 19th to the 98th percentile nationally. The map is where that becomes a choice of area.
Dubuque's strengths and weaknesses
Dubuque ranks where it does because the parts of life that are hardest to change mostly work here. Short commutes is the standout, in the top 2% of metro areas. Good schools and state finances follow.
The one real hole is internet speeds, near the bottom of the country. A weak job market and noise also cost it ground. The measures below break that down, and the map shows how much of it holds street by street.
Where Dubuque ranks high
- Short commute16.7 minutes each way, better than 98% of metro areas
- School gradeA−, better than 97% of metro areas
- State fiscal healthBetter than 95% of metro areas
- Healthcare accessBetter than 95% of metro areas
- Low vacancyBetter than 90% of metro areas
Where Dubuque ranks low
- Internet speedBetter than only 2% of metro areas
- Local economyBetter than only 24% of metro areas
- QuietBetter than only 29% of metro areas
- Low property taxBetter than only 30% of metro areas
- Big-city accessBetter than only 35% of metro areas
What it costs to buy a home in Dubuque
A household needs to earn about $69,000 a year to comfortably buy the median Dubuque home, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate. That is below the area's own median income of $83,868, 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 Dubuque's effective rate of 1.17%, 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 10 years, then pulls ahead as rent keeps rising and the mortgage builds equity. The chart tracks the running cost of each.
Who lives in Dubuque
Dubuque's age mix sits close to the national median, 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 Dubuque.
Who works in Dubuque, and how
Work in Dubuque centers on manufacturing and health care & social. Unemployment is low, and the job base is shrinking.
Largest industries
How people get to work
- Drive or carpool 83%
- Work from home 12%
- Transit, walk, or bike 5%
Life in Dubuque
Dubuque has more restaurants and bars per resident than 83% of metro areas and more parkland per resident than 93% of metro areas. Dining, parks, and nightlife concentrates in some parts of Dubuque and thins out in others, which the map shows.
Is Dubuque growing, and who is moving in?
Dubuque has grown about 3% over the last decade. The largest inbound stream comes from Chicago, IL.
Where new residents come from
Where people leaving Dubuque go
Move counts are the latest county-to-county migration flows, each county grouped into its metro.
What the weather is like in Dubuque, month by month
Dubuque sees roughly 88 pleasant days a year. July highs average about 84 degrees. January highs sit near 30, with lows near 12. The comfortable stretch runs May through September.
Show the monthly temperatures
| Month | Avg high | Avg | Avg low |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | 30° | 21° | 12° |
| April | 60° | 47° | 35° |
| July | 84° | 73° | 62° |
| October | 64° | 51° | 40° |
Flying in and out of Dubuque
The nearest airport, Dubuque Regional, is about 7 miles away and is a small airport. The nearest major hub is General Mitchell International, about 145 miles away.
The best schools in and around Dubuque
Schools across Dubuque average an A−, better than 97% of metro areas.
Top elementary schools
- Cascade Elementary SchoolA+ · 77% proficient
- Peosta Elementary SchoolA+ · 75% proficient
- Carver Elementary SchoolA · 70% proficient
Top middle schools
- Drexler Middle SchoolA+ · 75% proficient
- Eleanor Roosevelt Middle SchoolA+ · 73% proficient
- George Washington Middle SchoolA · 62% proficient
Top high schools
- Cascade Junior-senior High SchoolA+ · 85% proficient
- Western Dubuque High SchoolA · 78% proficient
- Dubuque Senior High SchoolA− · 67% proficient
Grades come from K-12 test scores, with scores projected for schools missing data. See every Dubuque school and its grade on SchoolGrade.
Dubuque 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 Dubuque against the other 386 metro areas.
Who Dubuque suits
Remote workers
Cost of living against local pay beats 83% of metro areas and 12% already work from home.
Common questions about living in Dubuque
Is Dubuque a good place to live?
Using BestNeighborhood's default rankings, Dubuque ranks 20th of 387 metro areas. It scores highest on short commutes, good schools, and state finances, 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 Dubuque expensive to live in?
The median home is worth $249,931. The overall cost of living runs about 16% below the national average. Set against a $83,868 median income, cost of living beats 83% of metro areas.
Is Dubuque safe?
Yes, Dubuque is safer than 87% of metro areas. Safety varies a lot by neighborhood. Crime costs an estimated $238 per resident a year.
What is the weather like in Dubuque?
July highs average about 84 degrees, and January highs near 30 with lows near 12. That works out to about 88 pleasant days a year, more than 50% of metro areas.
What are the best neighborhoods in Dubuque?
Using the default rankings, the highest-scoring areas are Peosta, Asbury, and Epworth, Cascade & Farley. The ranked list and the re-weightable map above let you re-sort them for your own priorities.
Is Dubuque good for families?
Schools beat 97% of metro areas, crime safety beats 87%, and childcare runs $727 a month.
Is Dubuque good for remote workers?
Cost of living against local pay beats 83% of metro areas, though advertised internet speeds beat only 2% of metro areas. About 12% of workers already work from home.
Compare Dubuque with other metro areas
Sources and methodology
Every measure on this page is scored for each neighborhood, then rolled up to Dubuque. Scores are absolute rather than ranked, which means a 60 in Dubuque 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.
Dubuque detail on BestNeighborhood maps:
- Walk Grade for Dubuque: walkability, transit, and biking, measured on the real street network rather than by straight line distance.
- Noise in Dubuque: road, rail, and aviation sound modeling calibrated against federal ground truth measurements.
- Conservative vs liberal map of Dubuque: precinct level election results apportioned to neighborhoods.
- Mobile and cell coverage in Dubuque: carrier by carrier coverage behind the cell score.
Dubuque 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.