Best PlacesTompkinsville, AL Best Neighborhoods

2026–2027 edition · Data updated July 2026

Every neighborhood in and around Tompkinsville, scored on 40 measures of daily life and ranked to fit what matters to you. Several measures below read low, and the ranked lists name which ones. To work out which city fits you best, start with the best places to live tool.

See the map of best neighborhoods

Tompkinsville ranks 47,246th of 50,333 U.S. towns on the BestNeighborhood index. It scores highest on low property taxes by a wide margin, and crime is the weak spot.

#47,246
of 50,333 towns
BestNeighborhood rank
Defaults weight crime safety, affordability, schools, and weather highest: the things hardest to change after a move
N/A
of 50,333 towns
Your rank
Set your priorities to see your rank

The best neighborhoods in Tompkinsville

Map of the best neighborhoods in the Tompkinsville area, with better matches in green and worse matches in red
Click the map to explore
National median
Worse match Better match
Colorblind friendly off
Popular priorities:

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.

Tompkinsville's strengths and weaknesses

Top 3%Low property taxes
Top 5%A stable housing market
Top 10%Clean air
Each measure against the national median. Bars to the right beat the median; bars to the left fall short. Percentiles compare Tompkinsville with other towns.

Where Tompkinsville ranks high

  • Low property taxBetter than 98% of towns
  • Housing crash safetyBetter than 97% of towns
  • Air qualityBetter than 93% of towns
  • State infrastructureBetter than 89% of towns
  • QuietBetter than 82% of towns

Where Tompkinsville ranks low

  • Crime safetyBetter than only 5% of towns
  • Health outlookBetter than only 7% of towns
  • Household income$45,602 median, better than only 8% of towns
  • Local economyBetter than only 9% of towns
  • Low vacancyBetter than only 10% of towns

What it costs to buy a home in Tompkinsville

A household needs to earn about $17,000 a year to comfortably buy the median Tompkinsville home, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate. That is below the area's own median income of $45,602, so a typical household can afford the median home outright.

Income to buy the median home
$17,000
a year, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate
Estimated monthly payment
$391
principal, interest, tax, and insurance on a $69,798 home
Median rent
$385
a month, across all home sizes

Where the monthly payment goes

Principal & interest$356
Property tax$12
Homeowners insurance$23

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 Tompkinsville's effective rate of 0.20%, 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 5 years, then pulls ahead as rent keeps rising and the mortgage builds equity. The chart tracks the running cost of each.

Cumulative cost of renting versus owning the median home, first 10 years. Illustrative estimate.

Who lives in Tompkinsville

Tompkinsville runs older than the country, and households here run smaller than average.

Median age
49
older than the U.S. median of 41
Residents 65 and older
18%
versus 18% nationally
Average household
2.1
below the U.S. average of 2.6

Residents by age

Under 1818%
18 to 3415%
35 to 4923%
50 to 6426%
65 and older18%

Racial and ethnic makeup has its own map. See the race and diversity map for Tompkinsville.


Who works in Tompkinsville, and how

Work in Tompkinsville centers on manufacturing and construction. Unemployment is low, and the job base is shrinking.

Work from home
1%
below the national average
Unemployment
2.7%
below the national average
Job growth
−8.5%
/y 2019-2023, slower than the national pace

Largest industries

Manufacturing37%
Construction16%
Transportation & warehousing10%
Public administration8%
Health care & social5%

How people get to work

  • Drive or carpool 96%
  • Work from home 1%
  • Transit, walk, or bike 2%

Life in Tompkinsville

The map and measures below break down dining, culture, and green space by neighborhood across Tompkinsville.


What the weather is like in Tompkinsville, month by month

Tompkinsville sees roughly 90 pleasant days a year. July highs average about 92 degrees. January highs sit near 58, with lows near 37. The comfortable stretch runs March through May, October, and November.

Average daily high, mean, and low in degrees Fahrenheit, NOAA station data 2016 to 2025.
Show the monthly temperatures
MonthAvg highAvgAvg low
January58°46°37°
April77°65°53°
July92°82°73°
October80°67°56°

Flying in and out of Tompkinsville

The nearest airport, Key Field, is about 45 miles away and is a small airport. The nearest major hub is Louis Armstrong New Orleans International, about 202 miles away.

Nearest airport
MEI
Key Field, about 45 miles
Airport size
Nonhub
344th-busiest in the US, 1 nonstop destinations
Average drive
64 min
from the area, with no traffic

The best schools in and around Tompkinsville

Schools across Tompkinsville average a D+, better than 10% of towns.

Top elementary schools

Top middle schools

Top high schools

Grades come from K-12 test scores, with scores projected for schools missing data. See every Tompkinsville school and its grade on SchoolGrade.


Tompkinsville 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 Tompkinsville against the other 50,332 towns.


Common questions about living in Tompkinsville

Is Tompkinsville a good place to live?

Using BestNeighborhood's default rankings, Tompkinsville ranks 47,246th of 50,333 towns. It scores highest on low property taxes, a stable housing market, and clean air, and lowest on crime and health outcomes. How good it is for you depends on which of those you weight most, which the map lets you set.

Is Tompkinsville expensive to live in?

The median home is worth $69,798. The overall cost of living runs about 24% below the national average. Set against a $45,602 median income, cost of living beats 20% of towns.

Is Tompkinsville safe?

Tompkinsville is safer than 5% of towns. Safety varies a lot by neighborhood. Crime costs an estimated $657 per resident a year.


Compare Tompkinsville with other towns


Sources and methodology

Every measure on this page is scored for each neighborhood, then rolled up to Tompkinsville. Scores are absolute rather than ranked, which means a 60 in Tompkinsville 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.

Tompkinsville detail on BestNeighborhood maps:

  1. Walk Grade for Tompkinsville: walkability, transit, and biking, measured on the real street network rather than by straight line distance.
  2. Noise in Tompkinsville: road, rail, and aviation sound modeling calibrated against federal ground truth measurements.
  3. Conservative vs liberal map of Tompkinsville: precinct level election results apportioned to neighborhoods.
  4. Mobile and cell coverage in Tompkinsville: carrier by carrier coverage behind the cell score.

Tompkinsville detail on related sites:

  1. CrimeGrade: neighborhood crime rates behind the crime safety score.
  2. ISPreports.org: provider by provider internet availability and advertised speeds.
  3. CoverageWatch: the car insurance premiums behind the cheap car insurance score.

Federal and public data:

  1. 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.
  2. NOAA Global Surface Summary of the Day: the daily station record behind the monthly temperatures and the pleasant-day count.
  3. FAA Passenger Boarding Data: airport size and annual passenger counts.
  4. Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey: the 30-year fixed rate used in the cost-to-buy estimate.
  5. FBI Crime Data Explorer: reported offenses behind the tangible crime cost estimate.
  6. U.S. EPA Air Quality System: five year average air quality index.
  7. FEMA National Risk Index: expected annual loss from natural hazards.
  8. CDC PLACES: disease burden, preventable risk, and barriers to care.
  9. National Center for Education Statistics: school enrollment and assessment inputs behind the school grade.
  10. FCC National Broadband Map: internet and wireless availability.
  11. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: employment and job growth behind the local economy score.
  12. Religious activity uses a proprietary religious signal measurement.