Best PlacesOntario, CA Best Neighborhoods
2026–2027 edition · Data updated July 2026
Every neighborhood in and around Ontario, scored on 40 measures of daily life and ranked to fit what matters to you. The coast is close, and the measures below put a number on how close. To work out which city fits you best, start with the best places to live tool.
Ontario ranks 375th of 445 U.S. cities on the BestNeighborhood index. The coast is about 37 minutes away. Its strengths are big-city access and fast internet. The cost shows up in air quality, civic engagement, and thin health care access.
The best neighborhoods in Ontario
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.
Ontario's strengths and weaknesses
Ontario ranks near the bottom because several of the basics fall short at once. Big-city access, fast internet, and the weather carry most of that.
The weak spots are broad rather than narrow: air quality, civic engagement, and thin health care access all drag on the score. Those are area averages, and the map below shows which parts run well above them.
Where Ontario ranks high
- Big-city accessBetter than 92% of cities
- Internet speedBetter than 91% of cities
- Nice weatherabout 233 pleasant days a year, better than 91% of cities
- Low vacancyBetter than 88% of cities
- Low property taxBetter than 81% of cities
Where Ontario ranks low
- Air qualityBetter than only 3% of cities
- Voter turnoutBetter than only 6% of cities
- Healthcare accessBetter than only 6% of cities
- Educational attainmentBetter than only 6% of cities
- QuietBetter than only 10% of cities
What it costs to buy a home in Ontario
A household needs to earn about $145,000 a year to comfortably buy the median Ontario home, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate. That runs well above the area's median income of $92,258, 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 Ontario's effective rate of 0.62%, 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.
Who lives in Ontario
Ontario runs younger than the country, and households here run larger than average.
Residents by age
Racial and ethnic makeup has its own map. See the race and diversity map for Ontario.
Who works in Ontario, and how
Work in Ontario centers on retail trade and health care & social. Unemployment is close to the national rate, and jobs are growing.
Largest industries
How people get to work
- Drive or carpool 88%
- Work from home 9%
- Transit, walk, or bike 4%
Life in Ontario
Ontario has more restaurants and bars per resident than 76% of cities and more parkland per resident than 82% of cities. The coast is about 37 minutes away. Dining, parks, and nightlife concentrates in some parts of Ontario and thins out in others, which the map shows.
What the weather is like in Ontario, month by month
Ontario sees roughly 233 pleasant days a year. July highs average about 96 degrees. January highs sit near 69, with lows near 43. The comfortable stretch runs October through June.
Show the monthly temperatures
| Month | Avg high | Avg | Avg low |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | 69° | 55° | 43° |
| April | 79° | 63° | 51° |
| July | 96° | 79° | 65° |
| October | 87° | 70° | 57° |
Flying in and out of Ontario
Ontario International sits about 2 miles away. It is a medium hub and boarded 3.5 million passengers in 2025, with 62 nonstop destinations.
The best schools in and around Ontario
Schools across Ontario average a C−, better than 23% of cities.
Top middle schools
- Magnolia Junior HighD+ · 25% proficient
- Woodcrest Junior HighD− · 15% proficient
Top high schools
- Colony HighB− · 44% proficient
- Montclair HighC+ · 39% proficient
- Ontario HighC+ · 36% proficient
Grades come from K-12 test scores, with scores projected for schools missing data. See every Ontario school and its grade on SchoolGrade.
Ontario 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 Ontario against the other 444 cities.
Who Ontario suits
Remote workers
Internet is fast and widely advertised and 9% already work from home.
Common questions about living in Ontario
Is Ontario a good place to live?
Using BestNeighborhood's default rankings, Ontario ranks 375th of 445 cities. It scores highest on big-city access, fast internet, and the weather, and lowest on air quality and civic engagement. How good it is for you depends on which of those you weight most, which the map lets you set.
Is Ontario expensive to live in?
The median home is worth $570,354. The overall cost of living runs about 21% above the national average. Set against a $92,258 median income, cost of living beats 14% of cities.
Is Ontario safe?
Ontario is safer than 40% of cities. Safety varies a lot by neighborhood. Crime costs an estimated $458 per resident a year.
What is the weather like in Ontario?
July highs average about 96 degrees, and January highs near 69 with lows near 43. That works out to about 233 pleasant days a year, more than 91% of cities.
Is Ontario good for families?
Schools beat 23% of cities, crime safety beats 40%, and childcare runs $1,252 a month.
Is Ontario good for remote workers?
Cost of living against local pay beats 14% of cities, and the fastest advertised internet here beats 91% of cities. About 9% of workers already work from home.
Compare Ontario with other cities
Sources and methodology
Every measure on this page is scored for each neighborhood, then rolled up to Ontario. Scores are absolute rather than ranked, which means a 60 in Ontario 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.
Ontario detail on BestNeighborhood maps:
- Walk Grade for Ontario: walkability, transit, and biking, measured on the real street network rather than by straight line distance.
- Noise in Ontario: road, rail, and aviation sound modeling calibrated against federal ground truth measurements.
- Conservative vs liberal map of Ontario: precinct level election results apportioned to neighborhoods.
- Mobile and cell coverage in Ontario: carrier by carrier coverage behind the cell score.
Ontario 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.