Best PlacesEast Village, Amherst, MA Best Neighborhoods

2026–2027 edition · Data updated July 2026

Every neighborhood in and around East Village, Amherst, scored on 40 measures of daily life and ranked to fit what matters to you. This page is for people who live here or already know they want to. To work out which city fits you best, start with the best places to live tool.

See the map of best neighborhoods

East Village, Amherst ranks 1,085th of 5,983 U.S. neighborhoods on the BestNeighborhood index. It scores highest on tree cover by a wide margin, and cell coverage ranks lowest.

#1,085
of 5,983 neighborhoods
BestNeighborhood rank
Defaults weight crime safety, affordability, schools, and weather highest: the things hardest to change after a move
N/A
of 5,983 neighborhoods
Your rank
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The best neighborhoods in East Village, Amherst

Map of the best neighborhoods in the East Village, Amherst area, with better matches in green and worse matches in red
Click the map to explore
National median
Worse match Better match
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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.

East Village, Amherst's strengths and weaknesses

Top 1%Tree cover
Top 3%An educated workforce
Top 10%Heat safety
Each measure against the national median. Bars to the right beat the median; bars to the left fall short. Percentiles compare East Village, Amherst with other neighborhoods.

Where East Village, Amherst ranks high

  • Tree shadeBetter than 99% of neighborhoods
  • Educational attainmentBetter than 98% of neighborhoods
  • Heat safetyBetter than 93% of neighborhoods
  • Healthcare accessBetter than 92% of neighborhoods
  • School gradeA−, better than 92% of neighborhoods

Where East Village, Amherst ranks low

  • Cell coverageBetter than only 1% of neighborhoods
  • WalkabilityBetter than only 7% of neighborhoods
  • Housing crash safetyBetter than only 12% of neighborhoods
  • Nice weatherabout 64 pleasant days a year, better than only 14% of neighborhoods
  • Internet speedBetter than only 17% of neighborhoods

What it costs to buy a home in East Village, Amherst

A household needs to earn about $140,000 a year to comfortably buy the median East Village, Amherst home, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate. That runs well above the area's median income of $110,133, so buying stretches a typical household.

Income to buy the median home
$140,000
a year, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate
Estimated monthly payment
$3,264
principal, interest, tax, and insurance on a $502,172 home
Median rent
$1,643
a month, across all home sizes

Where the monthly payment goes

Principal & interest$2,560
Property tax$536
Homeowners insurance$167

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 East Village, Amherst's effective rate of 1.28%, and insurance is estimated at 0.4% of home value a year.

Renting versus buying

At today's prices and rents, renting stays cheaper than buying across the first 10 years here, so the case for buying rests on staying much longer or on prices rising faster than assumed. 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 East Village, Amherst

East Village, Amherst runs younger than the country, and households here run smaller than average.

Median age
36
younger than the U.S. median of 41
Residents 65 and older
19%
versus 18% nationally
Average household
2.2
below the U.S. average of 2.6

Residents by age

Under 1818%
18 to 3431%
35 to 4917%
50 to 6416%
65 and older18%

Racial and ethnic makeup has its own map. See the race and diversity map for East Village, Amherst.


Who works in East Village, Amherst, and how

Work in East Village, Amherst centers on education and health care & social. Unemployment is close to the national rate, and employment has held roughly flat.

Work from home
23%
above the national average
Unemployment
3.8%
below the national average
Job growth
+0.1%
/y 2019-2023, slower than the national pace

Largest industries

Education42%
Health care & social18%
Arts & entertainment6%
Professional & technical6%
Retail trade5%

How people get to work

  • Drive or carpool 71%
  • Work from home 23%
  • Transit, walk, or bike 6%

Life in East Village, Amherst

The map and measures below break down dining, culture, and green space by neighborhood across East Village, Amherst.


What the weather is like in East Village, Amherst, month by month

East Village, Amherst sees roughly 64 pleasant days a year. July highs average about 88 degrees. January highs sit near 39, with lows near 18. The comfortable stretch runs May through September.

Average daily high, mean, and low in degrees Fahrenheit, NOAA station data 2016 to 2025.
Show the monthly temperatures
MonthAvg highAvgAvg low
January39°28°18°
April62°48°35°
July88°74°61°
October68°53°41°

Flying in and out of East Village, Amherst

Bradley International sits about 31 miles away. It is a medium hub and boarded 3.3 million passengers in 2025, with 92 nonstop destinations.

Nearest airport
BDL
Bradley International, about 31 miles
Airport size
Medium hub
55th-busiest in the US, 92 nonstop destinations
Average drive
44 min
from the area, with no traffic

The best schools in and around East Village, Amherst

Schools across East Village, Amherst average an A−, better than 92% of neighborhoods.

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 East Village, Amherst school and its grade on SchoolGrade.


East Village, Amherst 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 East Village, Amherst against the other 5,982 neighborhoods.


Common questions about living in East Village, Amherst

Is East Village, Amherst a good place to live?

Using BestNeighborhood's default rankings, East Village, Amherst ranks 1,085th of 5,983 neighborhoods. It scores highest on tree cover, an educated workforce, and heat safety, and lowest on cell coverage and walkability. How good it is for you depends on which of those you weight most, which the map lets you set.

Is East Village, Amherst expensive to live in?

The median home is worth $502,172. The overall cost of living runs about 11% above the national average. Set against a $110,133 median income, cost of living beats 72% of neighborhoods.

Is East Village, Amherst safe?

Yes, East Village, Amherst is safer than 89% of neighborhoods. Safety varies a lot by neighborhood. Crime costs an estimated $241 per resident a year.


Compare East Village, Amherst with other neighborhoods


Sources and methodology

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

East Village, Amherst detail on BestNeighborhood maps:

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

East Village, Amherst 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.