Best PlacesMelville, NY Best Neighborhoods
2026–2027 edition · Data updated July 2026
Every neighborhood in and around Melville, scored on 40 measures of daily life and ranked to fit what matters to you. Local pay runs high here, and housing takes the biggest bite out of it. To work out which city fits you best, start with the best places to live tool.
Melville ranks 1,378th of 50,333 U.S. towns on the BestNeighborhood index. It scores highest on high incomes by a wide margin, and noise is the weak spot.
The best neighborhoods in Melville
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.
Melville's strengths and weaknesses
Where Melville ranks high
- Household income$182,130 median, better than 99% of towns
- Big-city accessBetter than 99% of towns
- Healthcare accessBetter than 99% of towns
- School gradeA, better than 98% of towns
- Educational attainmentBetter than 98% of towns
Where Melville ranks low
- QuietBetter than only 3% of towns
- Cheap childcare$1,476 a month, better than only 4% of towns
- Cheap car insuranceBetter than only 5% of towns
- Low property taxBetter than only 8% of towns
- Low income/sales/gas taxBetter than only 15% of towns
What it costs to buy a home in Melville
A household needs to earn about $241,000 a year to comfortably buy the median Melville home, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate. That runs well above the area's median income of $182,130, 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 Melville's effective rate of 1.60%, 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 Melville
Melville runs older than the country.
Residents by age
Racial and ethnic makeup has its own map. See the race and diversity map for Melville.
Who works in Melville, and how
Work in Melville centers on health care & social and professional & technical. Unemployment sits above the national rate, and employment has held roughly flat.
Largest industries
How people get to work
- Drive or carpool 75%
- Work from home 15%
- Transit, walk, or bike 10%
Life in Melville
Melville has more restaurants and bars per resident than 78% of towns and more parkland per resident than 84% of towns. The coast is about 18 minutes away. Dining, parks, and nightlife concentrates in some parts of Melville and thins out in others, which the map shows.
What the weather is like in Melville, month by month
Melville sees roughly 75 pleasant days a year. July highs average about 86 degrees. January highs sit near 44, with lows near 26. The comfortable stretch runs May, June, and August through October.
Show the monthly temperatures
| Month | Avg high | Avg | Avg low |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | 44° | 35° | 26° |
| April | 62° | 51° | 42° |
| July | 86° | 77° | 69° |
| October | 69° | 59° | 50° |
Flying in and out of Melville
The nearest airport, Long Island MacArthur, is about 16 miles away and is a small airport. The nearest major hub is John F Kennedy International, about 22 miles away.
The best schools in and around Melville
Schools across Melville average an A, better than 98% of towns.
Top elementary schools
- Paumanok Elementary SchoolA+ · 88% proficient
- Signal Hill Elementary SchoolA+ · 86% proficient
- Otsego Elementary SchoolA+ · 82% proficient
Top middle schools
- Candlewood Middle SchoolA+ · 78% proficient
- West Hollow Middle SchoolA+ · 76% proficient
- Henry L Stimson Middle SchoolC+ · 36% proficient
Top high schools
- Half Hollow Hills High School WestA+ · 99% proficient
- Half Hollow Hills High School EastA+ · 96% proficient
- Walt Whitman High SchoolA+ · 96% proficient
Grades come from K-12 test scores, with scores projected for schools missing data. See every Melville school and its grade on SchoolGrade.
Melville 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 Melville against the other 50,332 towns.
Common questions about living in Melville
Is Melville a good place to live?
Using BestNeighborhood's default rankings, Melville ranks 1,378th of 50,333 towns. It scores highest on high incomes, big-city access, and health care access, and lowest on noise and childcare costs. How good it is for you depends on which of those you weight most, which the map lets you set.
Is Melville expensive to live in?
The median home is worth $832,556. The overall cost of living runs about 34% above the national average. Set against a $182,130 median income, cost of living beats 96% of towns.
Is Melville safe?
Melville is safer than 52% of towns. Safety varies a lot by neighborhood. Crime costs an estimated $306 per resident a year.
Compare Melville with other towns
Sources and methodology
Every measure on this page is scored for each neighborhood, then rolled up to Melville. Scores are absolute rather than ranked, which means a 60 in Melville 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.
Melville detail on BestNeighborhood maps:
- Walk Grade for Melville: walkability, transit, and biking, measured on the real street network rather than by straight line distance.
- Noise in Melville: road, rail, and aviation sound modeling calibrated against federal ground truth measurements.
- Conservative vs liberal map of Melville: precinct level election results apportioned to neighborhoods.
- Mobile and cell coverage in Melville: carrier by carrier coverage behind the cell score.
Melville 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.