Best PlacesOrient, NY Best Neighborhoods
2026–2027 edition · Data updated July 2026
Every neighborhood in and around Orient, 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.
Orient ranks 6,429th of 50,333 U.S. towns on the BestNeighborhood index. It scores highest on health care access by a wide margin, and an overheated housing market is the weak spot.
The best neighborhoods in Orient
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.
Orient's strengths and weaknesses
Where Orient ranks high
- Healthcare accessBetter than 99% of towns
- Internet speedBetter than 98% of towns
- Educational attainmentBetter than 96% of towns
- TransitBetter than 93% of towns
- Big-city accessBetter than 93% of towns
Where Orient ranks low
- Housing crash safetyBetter than only 1% of towns
- Cheap childcare$1,476 a month, better than only 4% of towns
- Cheap car insuranceBetter than only 8% of towns
- Low vacancyBetter than only 10% of towns
- Low income/sales/gas taxBetter than only 15% of towns
What it costs to buy a home in Orient
A household needs to earn about $244,000 a year to comfortably buy the median Orient home, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate. That runs well above the area's median income of $94,261, 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 Orient's effective rate of 0.51%, and insurance is estimated at 0.4% of home value a year.
Who lives in Orient
Orient 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 Orient.
Who works in Orient, and how
Work in Orient centers on construction and professional & technical. Unemployment sits above the national rate, and jobs are growing.
Largest industries
How people get to work
- Drive or carpool 49%
- Work from home 27%
- Transit, walk, or bike 23%
Life in Orient
Orient has more restaurants and bars per resident than 99% of towns. The coast is about 1 minutes away. That concentrates in some parts of Orient and thins out in others, which the map shows.
What the weather is like in Orient, month by month
Orient sees roughly 80 pleasant days a year. July highs average about 82 degrees. January highs sit near 42, with lows near 24. The comfortable stretch runs May through October.
Show the monthly temperatures
| Month | Avg high | Avg | Avg low |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | 42° | 33° | 24° |
| April | 58° | 47° | 37° |
| July | 82° | 73° | 64° |
| October | 66° | 56° | 46° |
Flying in and out of Orient
The nearest airport, Westerly State, is about 29 miles away and is a small airport. The nearest major hub is Bradley International, about 59 miles away.
The best schools in and around Orient
Schools across Orient average an A, better than 91% of towns.
Top elementary schools
- Oysterponds Elementary SchoolA · 63% proficient
Top middle schools
- Old Saybrook Middle SchoolA− · 57% proficient
Top high schools
- Lyme-old Lyme High SchoolA · 72% proficient
- Greenport High SchoolA− · 65% proficient
- Waterford High SchoolB+ · 55% proficient
Grades come from K-12 test scores, with scores projected for schools missing data. See every Orient school and its grade on SchoolGrade.
Orient 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 Orient against the other 50,332 towns.
Common questions about living in Orient
Is Orient a good place to live?
Using BestNeighborhood's default rankings, Orient ranks 6,429th of 50,333 towns. It scores highest on health care access, fast internet, and an educated workforce, 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 Orient expensive to live in?
The median home is worth $973,700. The overall cost of living runs about 56% above the national average. Set against a $94,261 median income, cost of living beats 34% of towns.
Is Orient safe?
Yes, Orient is safer than 88% of towns. Safety varies a lot by neighborhood. Crime costs an estimated $189 per resident a year.
Compare Orient with other towns
Sources and methodology
Every measure on this page is scored for each neighborhood, then rolled up to Orient. Scores are absolute rather than ranked, which means a 60 in Orient 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.
Orient detail on BestNeighborhood maps:
- Walk Grade for Orient: walkability, transit, and biking, measured on the real street network rather than by straight line distance.
- Noise in Orient: road, rail, and aviation sound modeling calibrated against federal ground truth measurements.
- Conservative vs liberal map of Orient: precinct level election results apportioned to neighborhoods.
- Mobile and cell coverage in Orient: carrier by carrier coverage behind the cell score.
Orient 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.