Best PlacesRuston, WA Best Neighborhoods
2026–2027 edition · Data updated July 2026
Every neighborhood in and around Ruston, 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.
Ruston ranks 5,842nd of 50,333 U.S. towns on the BestNeighborhood index. It scores highest on biking by a wide margin, and noise is the weak spot.
The best neighborhoods in Ruston
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.
Ruston's strengths and weaknesses
Where Ruston ranks high
- BikingBetter than 99% of towns
- TransitBetter than 99% of towns
- WalkabilityBetter than 99% of towns
- Air qualityBetter than 94% of towns
- Educational attainmentBetter than 93% of towns
Where Ruston ranks low
- QuietBetter than only 1% of towns
- Cheap childcare$1,327 a month, better than only 8% of towns
- Housing crash safetyBetter than only 12% of towns
- State infrastructureBetter than only 13% of towns
- Disaster safetyBetter than only 15% of towns
What it costs to buy a home in Ruston
A household needs to earn about $200,000 a year to comfortably buy the median Ruston home, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate. That runs well above the area's median income of $96,651, 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 Ruston's effective rate of 0.79%, 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 Ruston
Ruston 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 Ruston.
Who works in Ruston, and how
Work in Ruston centers on health care & social and finance & insurance. Unemployment is low, and employment has held roughly flat.
Largest industries
How people get to work
- Drive or carpool 84%
- Work from home 12%
- Transit, walk, or bike 4%
Life in Ruston
The coast is about 0 minutes away. Distance to the water changes a lot across Ruston, which the map shows.
What the weather is like in Ruston, month by month
Ruston sees roughly 132 pleasant days a year. July highs average about 79 degrees. January highs sit near 48, with lows near 36. The comfortable stretch runs May through September.
Show the monthly temperatures
| Month | Avg high | Avg | Avg low |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | 48° | 42° | 36° |
| April | 60° | 49° | 41° |
| July | 79° | 65° | 54° |
| October | 61° | 52° | 45° |
Flying in and out of Ruston
Seattle-Tacoma International sits about 14 miles away. It is a large hub and boarded 25.4 million passengers in 2025, with 172 nonstop destinations.
Ruston 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 Ruston against the other 50,332 towns.
Common questions about living in Ruston
Is Ruston a good place to live?
Using BestNeighborhood's default rankings, Ruston ranks 5,842nd of 50,333 towns. It scores highest on biking, transit, and walkability, 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 Ruston expensive to live in?
The median home is worth $766,959. The overall cost of living runs about 16% above the national average. Set against a $96,651 median income, cost of living beats 62% of towns.
Is Ruston safe?
Ruston is safer than 53% of towns. Safety varies a lot by neighborhood. Crime costs an estimated $396 per resident a year.
Compare Ruston with other towns
Sources and methodology
Every measure on this page is scored for each neighborhood, then rolled up to Ruston. Scores are absolute rather than ranked, which means a 60 in Ruston 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.
Ruston detail on BestNeighborhood maps:
- Walk Grade for Ruston: walkability, transit, and biking, measured on the real street network rather than by straight line distance.
- Noise in Ruston: road, rail, and aviation sound modeling calibrated against federal ground truth measurements.
- Conservative vs liberal map of Ruston: precinct level election results apportioned to neighborhoods.
- Mobile and cell coverage in Ruston: carrier by carrier coverage behind the cell score.
Ruston 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.