Best PlacesPocatello, ID Best Neighborhoods
2026–2027 edition · Data updated July 2026
Every neighborhood in the Pocatello metro, 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.
Photo by Jordan W., CC BY-SA 3.0, via commons
Pocatello ranks 38th of 387 U.S. metro areas on the BestNeighborhood index. It does not top any single list, but it lands above the national middle on state finances and cheap car insurance. The weaker spots are distance from a big city, an overheated housing market, and air quality.
The best neighborhoods in the Pocatello metro
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.
Pocatello's strengths and weaknesses
Pocatello ranks where it does because the parts of life that are hardest to change mostly work here. State finances is the standout, in the top 1% of metro areas. Cheap car insurance and short commutes follow.
The drawbacks are real but narrow. Distance from a big city, an overheated housing market, and air quality hold the score down. The measures below break that down, and the map shows how much of it holds street by street.
Where Pocatello ranks high
- State fiscal healthBetter than 99% of metro areas
- Cheap car insuranceBetter than 98% of metro areas
- Short commute17.6 minutes each way, better than 97% of metro areas
- Crime safetyBetter than 96% of metro areas
- Cheap childcare$581 a month, better than 95% of metro areas
Where Pocatello ranks low
- Big-city accessBetter than only 6% of metro areas
- Housing crash safetyBetter than only 12% of metro areas
- Air qualityBetter than only 14% of metro areas
- QuietBetter than only 14% of metro areas
- Tree shadeBetter than only 19% of metro areas
What it costs to buy a home in Pocatello
A household needs to earn about $80,000 a year to comfortably buy the median Pocatello home, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate. That is only a little above the area's median income of $74,447; 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 Pocatello's effective rate of 0.68%, 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 Pocatello
Pocatello runs younger than the country.
Residents by age
Racial and ethnic makeup has its own map. See the race and diversity map for Pocatello.
Who works in Pocatello, and how
Work in Pocatello centers on health care & social and education. Unemployment is close to the national rate, and jobs are growing.
Largest industries
How people get to work
- Drive or carpool 83%
- Work from home 11%
- Transit, walk, or bike 5%
Life in Pocatello
Pocatello has fewer places to eat and drink per resident than most metro areas and more parkland per resident than 76% of metro areas. Dining, parks, and nightlife concentrates in some parts of Pocatello and thins out in others, which the map shows.
Is Pocatello growing, and who is moving in?
Pocatello has grown about 9% over the last decade. The largest inbound stream comes from Boise, ID.
Where new residents come from
Where people leaving Pocatello go
Move counts are the latest county-to-county migration flows, each county grouped into its metro.
What the weather is like in Pocatello, month by month
Pocatello sees roughly 108 pleasant days a year. July highs average about 93 degrees. January highs sit near 36, with lows near 16. The comfortable stretch runs May through September.
Show the monthly temperatures
| Month | Avg high | Avg | Avg low |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | 36° | 25° | 16° |
| April | 62° | 46° | 31° |
| July | 93° | 74° | 51° |
| October | 65° | 47° | 32° |
Flying in and out of Pocatello
The nearest airport, Pocatello Regional, is about 8 miles away and is a small airport. The nearest major hub is Salt Lake City International, about 146 miles away.
The best schools in and around Pocatello
Schools across Pocatello average a B+, better than 80% of metro areas.
Top elementary schools
- Arbon Elementary SchoolA+ · 75% proficient
- Edahow Elementary SchoolA · 70% proficient
- Gate City Elementary SchoolA · 66% proficient
Top middle schools
- Franklin Middle SchoolA · 59% proficient
- Alameda Middle SchoolB+ · 52% proficient
- Marsh Valley Middle SchoolB+ · 50% proficient
Top high schools
- Century High SchoolB+ · 56% proficient
- Pocatello High SchoolB+ · 55% proficient
- Highland High SchoolB+ · 51% proficient
Grades come from K-12 test scores, with scores projected for schools missing data. See every Pocatello school and its grade on SchoolGrade.
Pocatello 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 Pocatello against the other 386 metro areas.
Who Pocatello suits
Remote workers
Internet is fast and widely advertised and 11% already work from home.
Common questions about living in Pocatello
Is Pocatello a good place to live?
Using BestNeighborhood's default rankings, Pocatello ranks 38th of 387 metro areas. It scores highest on state finances, cheap car insurance, and short commutes, and lowest on distance from a big city 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 Pocatello expensive to live in?
The median home is worth $311,220. The overall cost of living runs about 19% below the national average. Set against a $74,447 median income, cost of living beats 56% of metro areas.
Is Pocatello safe?
Yes, Pocatello is safer than 96% of metro areas. Safety varies a lot by neighborhood. Crime costs an estimated $230 per resident a year.
What is the weather like in Pocatello?
July highs average about 93 degrees, and January highs near 36 with lows near 16. That works out to about 108 pleasant days a year, more than 65% of metro areas.
Is Pocatello good for families?
Schools beat 80% of metro areas, crime safety beats 96%, and childcare runs $581 a month.
Is Pocatello good for remote workers?
Cost of living against local pay beats 56% of metro areas, and the fastest advertised internet here beats 83% of metro areas. About 11% of workers already work from home.
Compare Pocatello with other metro areas
Sources and methodology
Every measure on this page is scored for each neighborhood, then rolled up to Pocatello. Scores are absolute rather than ranked, which means a 60 in Pocatello 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.
Pocatello detail on BestNeighborhood maps:
- Walk Grade for Pocatello: walkability, transit, and biking, measured on the real street network rather than by straight line distance.
- Noise in Pocatello: road, rail, and aviation sound modeling calibrated against federal ground truth measurements.
- Conservative vs liberal map of Pocatello: precinct level election results apportioned to neighborhoods.
- Mobile and cell coverage in Pocatello: carrier by carrier coverage behind the cell score.
Pocatello 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.
- U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program: population growth and net migration behind the population-change section.
- 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.