Best PlacesEmeryville, CA Best Neighborhoods
2026–2027 edition · Data updated July 2026
Every neighborhood in and around Emeryville, scored on 40 measures of daily life and ranked to fit what matters to you. Distance to the water drives a lot of the difference between one part and the next. To work out which city fits you best, start with the best places to live tool.
Emeryville ranks 923rd of 2,098 U.S. cities on the BestNeighborhood index. It scores highest on biking by a wide margin, and noise is the weak spot.
The best neighborhoods in Emeryville
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 Emeryville
The parts of Emeryville, ranked by the BestNeighborhood standard score across every neighborhood, highest scoring first.
Paradise Park
Longfellow
Golden Gate
Santa Fe
Gaskill
Clawson & McClymonds
Hoover-Foster
Emeryville shows why a single number is not enough. Some neighborhoods score in the bottom 8% of the country and others in the top 9%. Pick the area first, then the home.
Emeryville's strengths and weaknesses
Where Emeryville ranks high
- BikingBetter than 99% of cities
- WalkabilityBetter than 99% of cities
- TransitBetter than 99% of cities
- Health outlookBetter than 95% of cities
- Nice weatherabout 224 pleasant days a year, better than 93% of cities
Where Emeryville ranks low
- QuietBetter than only 1% of cities
- Crime safetyBetter than only 1% of cities
- Cheap childcare$2,082 a month, better than only 2% of cities
- Local economyBetter than only 2% of cities
- Disaster safetyBetter than only 7% of cities
What it costs to buy a home in Emeryville
A household needs to earn about $223,000 a year to comfortably buy the median Emeryville home, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate. That runs well above the area's median income of $122,098, so buying stretches a typical household.
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 Emeryville's effective rate of 0.96%, 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.
Who lives in Emeryville
Emeryville 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 Emeryville.
Who works in Emeryville, and how
Work in Emeryville centers on professional & technical and health care & social. Unemployment sits above the national rate, and employment has held roughly flat.
Largest industries
How people get to work
- Drive or carpool 43%
- Work from home 36%
- Transit, walk, or bike 21%
Life in Emeryville
Emeryville has more restaurants and bars per resident than 88% of cities and more parkland per resident than 83% of cities. The coast is about 14 minutes away. Dining, parks, and nightlife concentrates in some parts of Emeryville and thins out in others, which the map shows.
What the weather is like in Emeryville, month by month
Emeryville sees roughly 224 pleasant days a year. July highs average about 74 degrees. January highs sit near 61, with lows near 43. The comfortable stretch runs March through November.
Show the monthly temperatures
| Month | Avg high | Avg | Avg low |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | 61° | 52° | 43° |
| April | 68° | 57° | 49° |
| July | 74° | 63° | 56° |
| October | 76° | 63° | 51° |
Flying in and out of Emeryville
San Francisco Bay Oakland International sits about 9 miles away. It is a medium hub and boarded 4.5 million passengers in 2025, with 64 nonstop destinations.
The best schools in and around Emeryville
Schools across Emeryville average a C, better than 29% of cities.
Top elementary schools
- Yu Ming CharterA+ · 89% proficient
Top high schools
- Berkeley HighA+ · 84% proficient
- Emery SecondaryD · 20% proficient
Grades come from K-12 test scores, with scores projected for schools missing data. See every Emeryville school and its grade on SchoolGrade.
Emeryville 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 Emeryville against the other 2,097 cities.
Who Emeryville suits
Remote workers
Internet is fast and widely advertised and 36% already work from home.
Common questions about living in Emeryville
Is Emeryville a good place to live?
Using BestNeighborhood's default rankings, Emeryville ranks 923rd of 2,098 cities. It scores highest on biking, walkability, and transit, and lowest on noise and crime. How good it is for you depends on which of those you weight most, which the map lets you set.
Is Emeryville expensive to live in?
The median home is worth $837,046. The overall cost of living runs about 28% above the national average. Set against a $122,098 median income, cost of living beats 58% of cities.
Is Emeryville safe?
Emeryville is safer than 0% of cities. Safety varies a lot by neighborhood. Crime costs an estimated $965 per resident a year.
What is the weather like in Emeryville?
July highs average about 74 degrees, and January highs near 61 with lows near 43. That works out to about 224 pleasant days a year, more than 93% of cities.
What are the best neighborhoods in Emeryville?
Using the default rankings, the highest-scoring areas are Paradise Park, Longfellow, and Golden Gate. The ranked list and the re-weightable map above let you re-sort them for your own priorities.
Compare Emeryville with other cities
Sources and methodology
Every measure on this page is scored for each neighborhood, then rolled up to Emeryville. Scores are absolute rather than ranked, which means a 60 in Emeryville 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.
Emeryville detail on BestNeighborhood maps:
- Walk Grade for Emeryville: walkability, transit, and biking, measured on the real street network rather than by straight line distance.
- Noise in Emeryville: road, rail, and aviation sound modeling calibrated against federal ground truth measurements.
- Conservative vs liberal map of Emeryville: precinct level election results apportioned to neighborhoods.
- Mobile and cell coverage in Emeryville: carrier by carrier coverage behind the cell score.
Emeryville 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.
- 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.