Best PlacesLamb, IL Best Neighborhoods

2026–2027 edition · Data updated July 2026

Every neighborhood in and around Lamb, 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

Lamb ranks 46,427th of 50,333 U.S. towns on the BestNeighborhood index. It scores highest on a stable housing market by a wide margin, and the weather ranks lowest.

#46,427
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 Lamb

Map of the best neighborhoods in the Lamb 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.

Lamb's strengths and weaknesses

Top 10%A stable housing market
Each measure against the national median. Bars to the right beat the median; bars to the left fall short. Percentiles compare Lamb with other towns.

Where Lamb ranks high

  • Housing crash safetyBetter than 93% of towns
  • QuietBetter than 89% of towns
  • Tree shadeBetter than 84% of towns
  • Local economyBetter than 81% of towns
  • State infrastructureBetter than 77% of towns

Where Lamb ranks low

  • Nice weatherabout 50 pleasant days a year, better than only 1% of towns
  • School gradeD−, better than only 2% of towns
  • Low income/sales/gas taxBetter than only 3% of towns
  • State fiscal healthBetter than only 4% of towns
  • Household income$43,989 median, better than only 7% of towns

What it costs to buy a home in Lamb

A household needs to earn about $34,000 a year to comfortably buy the median Lamb home, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate. That is below the area's own median income of $43,989, so a typical household can afford the median home outright.

Income to buy the median home
$34,000
a year, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate
Estimated monthly payment
$787
principal, interest, tax, and insurance on a $131,063 home
Median rent
$490
a month, across all home sizes

Where the monthly payment goes

Principal & interest$668
Property tax$75
Homeowners insurance$44

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 Lamb's effective rate of 0.69%, 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.

Cumulative cost of renting versus owning the median home, first 10 years. Illustrative estimate.

Who lives in Lamb

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

Median age
59
older than the U.S. median of 41
Residents 65 and older
40%
versus 18% nationally
Average household
2.1
below the U.S. average of 2.6

Residents by age

Under 186%
18 to 3418%
35 to 4919%
50 to 6417%
65 and older40%

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


Who works in Lamb, and how

Work in Lamb centers on health care & social and mining & oil & gas. Unemployment is close to the national rate, and jobs are growing.

Work from home
1%
below the national average
Unemployment
4.3%
about the national average
Job growth
+47.8%
/y 2019-2023, faster than the national pace

Largest industries

Health care & social22%
Mining & oil & gas19%
Retail trade16%
Public administration9%
Education8%

How people get to work

  • Drive or carpool 93%
  • Work from home 1%
  • Transit, walk, or bike 5%

Life in Lamb

Lamb has more restaurants and bars per resident than 99% of towns. That concentrates in some parts of Lamb and thins out in others, which the map shows.

Places to eat and drink
267
restaurants, bars, and fast food, about 11171.5 per 10,000 residents, more than 99% of towns
Coffee shops
26
about 1087.9 per 10,000 residents, more than 99% of towns

What the weather is like in Lamb, month by month

Lamb sees roughly 50 pleasant days a year. July highs average about 88 degrees. January highs sit near 43, with lows near 27. The comfortable stretch runs April, May, and August through October.

Average daily high, mean, and low in degrees Fahrenheit, NOAA station data 2016 to 2025.
Show the monthly temperatures
MonthAvg highAvgAvg low
January43°34°27°
April69°56°46°
July88°78°69°
October72°59°49°

Flying in and out of Lamb

The nearest airport, Barkley Regional, is about 47 miles away and is a small airport. The nearest major hub is Nashville International, about 126 miles away.

Nearest airport
PAH
Barkley Regional, about 47 miles
Airport size
Nonhub
372nd-busiest in the US, 3 nonstop destinations
Average drive
67 min
from the area, with no traffic

The best schools in and around Lamb

Schools across Lamb average a D−, better than 2% 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 Lamb school and its grade on SchoolGrade.


Lamb 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 Lamb against the other 50,332 towns.


Common questions about living in Lamb

Is Lamb a good place to live?

Using BestNeighborhood's default rankings, Lamb ranks 46,427th of 50,333 towns. It scores highest on a stable housing market, quiet, and tree cover, and lowest on the weather and the schools. How good it is for you depends on which of those you weight most, which the map lets you set.

Is Lamb expensive to live in?

The median home is worth $131,063. The overall cost of living runs about 12% below the national average. Set against a $43,989 median income, cost of living beats 9% of towns.

Is Lamb safe?

Yes, Lamb is safer than 61% of towns. Safety varies a lot by neighborhood. Crime costs an estimated $219 per resident a year.


Compare Lamb with other towns


Sources and methodology

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

Lamb detail on BestNeighborhood maps:

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

Lamb 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.