Best PlacesWindsor Locks, CT Best Neighborhoods

2026–2027 edition · Data updated July 2026

Every neighborhood in and around Windsor Locks, 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

Windsor Locks ranks 8,472nd of 50,333 U.S. towns on the BestNeighborhood index. It scores highest on civic engagement by a wide margin, and the weather ranks lowest.

#8,472
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
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The best neighborhoods in Windsor Locks

Map of the best neighborhoods in the Windsor Locks 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.

Windsor Locks' strengths and weaknesses

Top 3%Civic engagement
Top 3%Transit
Top 5%Fast internet
Each measure against the national median. Bars to the right beat the median; bars to the left fall short. Percentiles compare Windsor Locks with other towns.

Where Windsor Locks ranks high

  • Voter turnoutBetter than 98% of towns
  • TransitBetter than 97% of towns
  • Internet speedBetter than 96% of towns
  • BikingBetter than 95% of towns
  • Low vacancyBetter than 94% of towns

Where Windsor Locks ranks low

  • Nice weatherabout 54 pleasant days a year, better than only 2% of towns
  • Cheap childcare$1,463 a month, better than only 5% of towns
  • State fiscal healthBetter than only 6% of towns
  • QuietBetter than only 10% of towns
  • Low property taxBetter than only 14% of towns

What it costs to buy a home in Windsor Locks

A household needs to earn about $75,000 a year to comfortably buy the median Windsor Locks home, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate. That is below the area's own median income of $88,267, so a typical household can afford the median home outright.

Income to buy the median home
$75,000
a year, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate
Estimated monthly payment
$1,751
principal, interest, tax, and insurance on a $267,622 home
Median rent
$1,381
a month, across all home sizes

Where the monthly payment goes

Principal & interest$1,365
Property tax$298
Homeowners insurance$89

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 Windsor Locks' effective rate of 1.33%, 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 7 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 Windsor Locks

Windsor Locks's age mix sits close to the national median, and households here run smaller than average.

Median age
42
older than the U.S. median of 41
Residents 65 and older
18%
versus 18% nationally
Average household
2.4
below the U.S. average of 2.6

Residents by age

Under 1818%
18 to 3422%
35 to 4921%
50 to 6420%
65 and older18%

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


Who works in Windsor Locks, and how

Work in Windsor Locks centers on manufacturing and health care & social. Unemployment sits above the national rate, and employment has held roughly flat.

Work from home
18%
above the national average
Unemployment
6.1%
above the national average
Job growth
−1.3%
/y 2019-2023, slower than the national pace

Largest industries

Manufacturing15%
Health care & social11%
Retail trade11%
Finance & insurance11%
Professional & technical8%

How people get to work

  • Drive or carpool 80%
  • Work from home 18%
  • Transit, walk, or bike 3%

Life in Windsor Locks

Windsor Locks has more restaurants and bars per resident than 82% of towns and more parkland per resident than 94% of towns. Dining, parks, and nightlife concentrates in some parts of Windsor Locks and thins out in others, which the map shows.

Places to eat and drink
74
restaurants, bars, and fast food, about 58.1 per 10,000 residents, more than 82% of towns
Coffee shops
8
about 6.3 per 10,000 residents, more than 83% of towns
Parkland
131 acres
about 10.3 acres per 1,000 residents, more than 94% of towns

What the weather is like in Windsor Locks, month by month

Windsor Locks sees roughly 54 pleasant days a year. July highs average about 89 degrees. January highs sit near 41, with lows near 20. The comfortable stretch runs May, June, and August through October.

Average daily high, mean, and low in degrees Fahrenheit, NOAA station data 2016 to 2025.
Show the monthly temperatures
MonthAvg highAvgAvg low
January41°30°20°
April64°50°38°
July89°76°64°
October69°55°44°

Flying in and out of Windsor Locks

Bradley International sits about 2 miles away. It is a medium hub and boarded 3.3 million passengers in 2025, with 92 nonstop destinations.

Nearest airport
BDL
Bradley International, about 2 miles
Airport size
Medium hub
55th-busiest in the US, 92 nonstop destinations
Average drive
8 min
from the area, with no traffic

The best schools in and around Windsor Locks

Schools across Windsor Locks average a B−, better than 61% 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 Windsor Locks school and its grade on SchoolGrade.


Windsor Locks 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 Windsor Locks against the other 50,332 towns.


Common questions about living in Windsor Locks

Is Windsor Locks a good place to live?

Using BestNeighborhood's default rankings, Windsor Locks ranks 8,472nd of 50,333 towns. It scores highest on civic engagement, transit, and fast internet, and lowest on the weather and childcare costs. How good it is for you depends on which of those you weight most, which the map lets you set.

Is Windsor Locks expensive to live in?

The median home is worth $267,622. The overall cost of living runs about 6% below the national average. Set against a $88,267 median income, cost of living beats 71% of towns.

Is Windsor Locks safe?

Yes, Windsor Locks is safer than 70% of towns. Safety varies a lot by neighborhood. Crime costs an estimated $190 per resident a year.


Compare Windsor Locks with other towns


Sources and methodology

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

Windsor Locks detail on BestNeighborhood maps:

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

Windsor Locks 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.