Best PlacesLee, MA Best Neighborhoods
2026–2027 edition · Data updated July 2026
Every neighborhood in and around Lee, 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.
Lee ranks 13,543rd of 50,333 U.S. towns on the BestNeighborhood index. It scores highest on health care access by a wide margin, and noise is the weak spot.
The best neighborhoods in Lee
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.
Lee's strengths and weaknesses
Where Lee ranks high
- Healthcare accessBetter than 95% of towns
- Educational attainmentBetter than 94% of towns
- TransitBetter than 94% of towns
- Short commute18.9 minutes each way, better than 91% of towns
- BikingBetter than 91% of towns
Where Lee ranks low
- QuietBetter than only 5% of towns
- Housing crash safetyBetter than only 5% of towns
- Cheap childcare$1,385 a month, better than only 6% 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 Lee
A household needs to earn about $97,000 a year to comfortably buy the median Lee home, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate. That is only a little above the area's median income of $96,247; the gap is small, which keeps homes within reach of local pay.
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 Lee's effective rate of 1.06%, 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 6 years, then pulls ahead as rent keeps rising and the mortgage builds equity. The chart tracks the running cost of each.
Who lives in Lee
Lee 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 Lee.
Who works in Lee, and how
Work in Lee centers on health care & social and education. Unemployment is low, and employment has held roughly flat.
Largest industries
How people get to work
- Drive or carpool 75%
- Work from home 17%
- Transit, walk, or bike 8%
Life in Lee
Lee has more restaurants and bars per resident than 94% of towns and more parkland per resident than 97% of towns. Dining, parks, and nightlife concentrates in some parts of Lee and thins out in others, which the map shows.
What the weather is like in Lee, month by month
Lee sees roughly 73 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 Lee
Bradley International sits about 38 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 Lee
Schools across Lee average a C+, better than 44% of towns.
Top elementary schools
- Becket Washington SchoolB+ · 52% proficient
- MorrisB · 50% proficient
- Lee ElementaryC · 35% proficient
Top high schools
- Lenox Memorial HighB+ · 55% proficient
- Lee Middle/high SchoolC+ · 37% proficient
Grades come from K-12 test scores, with scores projected for schools missing data. See every Lee school and its grade on SchoolGrade.
Lee 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 Lee against the other 50,332 towns.
Common questions about living in Lee
Is Lee a good place to live?
Using BestNeighborhood's default rankings, Lee ranks 13,543rd of 50,333 towns. It scores highest on health care access, an educated workforce, and transit, and lowest on noise and an overheated housing market. How good it is for you depends on which of those you weight most, which the map lets you set.
Is Lee expensive to live in?
The median home is worth $358,151. The overall cost of living runs about 9% above the national average. Set against a $96,247 median income, cost of living beats 66% of towns.
Is Lee safe?
Lee is safer than 49% of towns. Safety varies a lot by neighborhood. Crime costs an estimated $341 per resident a year.
Compare Lee with other towns
Sources and methodology
Every measure on this page is scored for each neighborhood, then rolled up to Lee. Scores are absolute rather than ranked, which means a 60 in Lee 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.
Lee detail on BestNeighborhood maps:
- Walk Grade for Lee: walkability, transit, and biking, measured on the real street network rather than by straight line distance.
- Noise in Lee: road, rail, and aviation sound modeling calibrated against federal ground truth measurements.
- Conservative vs liberal map of Lee: precinct level election results apportioned to neighborhoods.
- Mobile and cell coverage in Lee: carrier by carrier coverage behind the cell score.
Lee 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.