Best PlacesPiedmont, CA Best Neighborhoods
2026–2027 edition · Data updated July 2026
Every neighborhood in and around Piedmont, 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.
Piedmont ranks 204th of 50,333 U.S. towns on the BestNeighborhood index. It scores highest on an educated workforce by a wide margin, and childcare costs are the weak spot.
The best neighborhoods in Piedmont
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.
Piedmont's strengths and weaknesses
Where Piedmont ranks high
- Educational attainmentBetter than 99% of towns
- Cost of living vs incomeBetter than 99% of towns
- Health outlookBetter than 99% of towns
- Nice weatherabout 216 pleasant days a year, better than 99% of towns
- TransitBetter than 99% of towns
Where Piedmont ranks low
- Cheap childcare$2,082 a month, better than only 1% of towns
- Crime safetyBetter than only 6% of towns
- Low income/sales/gas taxBetter than only 8% of towns
- Disaster safetyBetter than only 10% of towns
- Cheap car insuranceBetter than only 16% of towns
What it costs to buy a home in Piedmont
A household needs to earn about $513,000 a year to comfortably buy the median Piedmont home, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate. That runs well above the area's median income of $240,856, 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 Piedmont's effective rate of 0.85%, 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 Piedmont
Piedmont runs older than the country.
Residents by age
Racial and ethnic makeup has its own map. See the race and diversity map for Piedmont.
Who works in Piedmont, and how
Work in Piedmont centers on professional & technical and health care & social. Unemployment is low, and the job base is shrinking.
Largest industries
How people get to work
- Drive or carpool 47%
- Work from home 40%
- Transit, walk, or bike 13%
Life in Piedmont
Piedmont has more parkland per resident than 98% of towns. The coast is about 17 minutes away. That concentrates in some parts of Piedmont and thins out in others, which the map shows.
What the weather is like in Piedmont, month by month
Piedmont sees roughly 216 pleasant days a year. July highs average about 74 degrees. January highs sit near 61, with lows near 43. The comfortable stretch runs March through November.
Show the monthly temperatures
| Month | Avg high | Avg | Avg low |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | 61° | 52° | 43° |
| April | 68° | 57° | 49° |
| July | 74° | 63° | 56° |
| October | 76° | 63° | 51° |
Flying in and out of Piedmont
San Francisco Bay Oakland International sits about 7 miles away. It is a medium hub and boarded 4.5 million passengers in 2025, with 64 nonstop destinations.
The best schools in and around Piedmont
Schools across Piedmont average an A, better than 97% of towns.
Top elementary schools
- Wildwood ElementaryA+ · 82% proficient
- Havens ElementaryA+ · 79% proficient
- Beach ElementaryA+ · 78% proficient
Top middle schools
- Piedmont MiddleA+ · 78% proficient
Top high schools
- Piedmont HighA · 78% proficient
- Millennium High AlternativeD+ · 25% proficient
Grades come from K-12 test scores, with scores projected for schools missing data. See every Piedmont school and its grade on SchoolGrade.
Piedmont 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 Piedmont against the other 50,332 towns.
Common questions about living in Piedmont
Is Piedmont a good place to live?
Using BestNeighborhood's default rankings, Piedmont ranks 204th of 50,333 towns. It scores highest on an educated workforce, what local pay buys, and population health, and lowest on childcare costs and crime. How good it is for you depends on which of those you weight most, which the map lets you set.
Is Piedmont expensive to live in?
The median home is worth $1,949,544. The overall cost of living runs about 37% above the national average. Set against a $240,856 median income, cost of living beats 100% of towns.
Is Piedmont safe?
Piedmont is safer than 6% of towns. Safety varies a lot by neighborhood. Crime costs an estimated $691 per resident a year.
Compare Piedmont with other towns
Sources and methodology
Every measure on this page is scored for each neighborhood, then rolled up to Piedmont. Scores are absolute rather than ranked, which means a 60 in Piedmont 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.
Piedmont detail on BestNeighborhood maps:
- Walk Grade for Piedmont: walkability, transit, and biking, measured on the real street network rather than by straight line distance.
- Noise in Piedmont: road, rail, and aviation sound modeling calibrated against federal ground truth measurements.
- Conservative vs liberal map of Piedmont: precinct level election results apportioned to neighborhoods.
- Mobile and cell coverage in Piedmont: carrier by carrier coverage behind the cell score.
Piedmont 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.