Best PlacesGreat Barrington, MA Best Neighborhoods
2026–2027 edition · Data updated July 2026
Every neighborhood in and around Great Barrington, 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.
Great Barrington ranks 12,372nd of 50,333 U.S. towns on the BestNeighborhood index. It scores highest on an educated workforce by a wide margin, and an overheated housing market is the weak spot.
The best neighborhoods in Great Barrington
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.
Great Barrington's strengths and weaknesses
Where Great Barrington ranks high
- Educational attainmentBetter than 96% of towns
- Healthcare accessBetter than 96% of towns
- Internet speedBetter than 95% of towns
- TransitBetter than 94% of towns
- WalkabilityBetter than 93% of towns
Where Great Barrington ranks low
- Housing crash safetyBetter than only 1% of towns
- Cheap childcare$1,385 a month, better than only 6% of towns
- Low vacancyBetter than only 10% of towns
- State fiscal healthBetter than only 24% of towns
- Low income/sales/gas taxBetter than only 25% of towns
What it costs to buy a home in Great Barrington
A household needs to earn about $159,000 a year to comfortably buy the median Great Barrington home, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate. That runs well above the area's median income of $92,027, 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 Great Barrington'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 Great Barrington
Great Barrington runs older 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 Great Barrington.
Who works in Great Barrington, and how
Work in Great Barrington centers on education and health care & social. Unemployment is low, and employment has held roughly flat.
Largest industries
How people get to work
- Drive or carpool 62%
- Work from home 25%
- Transit, walk, or bike 12%
Life in Great Barrington
Great Barrington has more restaurants and bars per resident than 94% of towns and more parkland per resident than 98% of towns. Dining, parks, and nightlife concentrates in some parts of Great Barrington and thins out in others, which the map shows.
What the weather is like in Great Barrington, month by month
Great Barrington sees roughly 74 pleasant days a year. July highs average about 83 degrees. January highs sit near 34, with lows near 16. The comfortable stretch runs May through September.
Show the monthly temperatures
| Month | Avg high | Avg | Avg low |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | 34° | 25° | 16° |
| April | 58° | 45° | 34° |
| July | 83° | 71° | 59° |
| October | 63° | 51° | 40° |
Flying in and out of Great Barrington
Bradley International sits about 39 miles away. It is a medium hub and boarded 3.3 million passengers in 2025, with 92 nonstop destinations.
The best schools in and around Great Barrington
Schools across Great Barrington average a B, better than 65% of towns.
Top elementary schools
- North Canaan Elementary SchoolB · 50% proficient
- Muddy Brook Regional Elementary SchoolB · 48% proficient
- New Marlborough CentralC · 31% proficient
Top middle schools
- W.e.b. Du Bois Regional Middle SchoolC · 32% proficient
Top high schools
- Taconic Hillsjunior/senior High SchoolA− · 65% proficient
- Monument Mt Regional HighA− · 65% proficient
- Mt Everett RegionalC · 33% proficient
Grades come from K-12 test scores, with scores projected for schools missing data. See every Great Barrington school and its grade on SchoolGrade.
Great Barrington 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 Great Barrington against the other 50,332 towns.
Common questions about living in Great Barrington
Is Great Barrington a good place to live?
Using BestNeighborhood's default rankings, Great Barrington ranks 12,372nd of 50,333 towns. It scores highest on an educated workforce, health care access, and fast internet, and lowest on an overheated housing market and childcare costs. How good it is for you depends on which of those you weight most, which the map lets you set.
Is Great Barrington expensive to live in?
The median home is worth $596,290. The overall cost of living runs about 21% above the national average. Set against a $92,027 median income, cost of living beats 46% of towns.
Is Great Barrington safe?
Great Barrington is safer than 52% of towns. Safety varies a lot by neighborhood. Crime costs an estimated $315 per resident a year.
Compare Great Barrington with other towns
Sources and methodology
Every measure on this page is scored for each neighborhood, then rolled up to Great Barrington. Scores are absolute rather than ranked, which means a 60 in Great Barrington 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.
Great Barrington detail on BestNeighborhood maps:
- Walk Grade for Great Barrington: walkability, transit, and biking, measured on the real street network rather than by straight line distance.
- Noise in Great Barrington: road, rail, and aviation sound modeling calibrated against federal ground truth measurements.
- Conservative vs liberal map of Great Barrington: precinct level election results apportioned to neighborhoods.
- Mobile and cell coverage in Great Barrington: carrier by carrier coverage behind the cell score.
Great Barrington 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.