Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Crete grades C+ overall, 515th of 767 graded towns in Illinois, with clear strengths and some subjects that lag. The median household earns $97K. Its lowest everyday mark is in cost of living: the typical home is worth about $303K, 3.3 years of the Chicago metro’s $91K median household income. Crete’s typical journey to work is 38 minutes, above both the Illinois town median (26 minutes) and the median of U.S. towns (25 minutes). Joseph Ferris Perry House is on the National Register of Historic Places. Crete is easier to get around on foot or by transit than 73% of U.S. towns.
Where Crete beats most towns.
Where Crete’s working residents go each day. Line width shows the share.
Census LEHD 2023
Each subject compared with towns across the country (schools within Illinois), ordered by how far Crete is from typical.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Census counts: 539 in 1880, 8,465 in 2020. The archive holds 4 old photos and papers going back to 2023 and 5 maps from 1930 on.
1 place on the National Register of Historic Places.
Museums, parks, gardens and other places to visit around Crete. Close and well known come first.
Big draw29 mi Stadium & arenaSoldier Field
Big draw35 mi Stadium & arenaWrigley Field
Big draw24 mi MuseumBarack Obama Presidential Center
Big draw27 mi Stadium & arenaRate Field
Big draw31 mi Stadium & arenaUnited Center
Big draw30 mi MuseumArt Institute of Chicago1.5M visitors a yearSoldier Field: Photo by Joon Han Contact: [email protected], CC BY-SA 3.0 · Wrigley Field: Ryan Dickey, CC BY 2.0 · Barack Obama Presidential Center: AlphaBeta135, CC0 · Rate Field: User Enoch Lai on en.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0 · United Center: User:JeremyA, CC BY-SA 2.5 · Art Institute of Chicago: ajay_suresh, CC BY 2.0
Who provides power, water and the rest in Crete, and how to reach them.
EPA SDWIS (Oct 9, 2026) · HIFLD + EIA-861 2025 · Census 2020 ZCTAs · NCES 2024–25 · registration: vote.gov, updated Sep 12, 2025.
Ordered by what stands out in Crete.
Crete owes part of its health edge to its incomes and has seen reported crime fall by a third or more, but it has commutes longer than most of Illinois.
The average commute for its 3,726 working residents takes 38.2 minutes, against 27.8 across Illinois.
For half of commuters, work is under 22 miles away. Between 2013 and 2023, jobs in Crete rose by 313, to 2,762. Commuting out is the norm here: 5% of working residents work locally. 3.9% of Crete residents live below the poverty line.
| Crete | Illinois towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Below the poverty line | 3.9% | 8.4% | 9.6% |
| Median household income | $97,000 | $83,000 | $80,000 |
| Working residents who work in town | 4.7% | 8.4% | 8% |
Census LEHD 2023 · ACS
The biggest park or preserve is Heritage Park, at 38 acres. In 5 parks and preserves, walkers have 2.8 miles of trail. Crete’s trail density comes in at 0.3 miles per square mile.
| Crete | Illinois towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Conserved land | 1.9% | 3.7% | 4.3% |
| Miles of trail per square mile | 0.3 miles per square mile | 0.3 | 0.4 |
| Biggest places to walk | Trails | Acres |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Heritage Park | — | 38 |
| 2. Crete Park | 0.2 mi | 6 |
| 3. Swiss Valley Park | — | 3 |
Trails & parks © OpenStreetMap contributors · Conserved land: USGS PAD-US
Expect July afternoons of 84° and January nights of 17°, with about 28 inches of snow a winter.
NOAA U.S. Climate Normals, 1991–2020
In Crete, the age of the median resident is 48.9 years. People 65 and older are a quarter of residents (17% statewide); adults 18 to 34 are 18% of residents (23% statewide). 20% of residents are under 18 here. College graduates make up 32% of adults 25 and older, against 38% across Illinois.
| Crete | Illinois towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median age | 48.9 years | 40.7 years | 40.5 years |
| Aged 65 or older | 25% | 19% | 18% |
| Under 18 | 20% | 22% | 22% |
| Bachelor’s degree or more, 25+ | 32% | 29% | 29% |
52% women, 48% men
That’s an even split within the survey’s margin of ±3 points. Across Illinois, 50.6% of residents are women.
| Crete | IL | U.S. | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 10 | 10.1% | 11.5% | 11.6% |
| 10 to 17 | 9.7% | 10.4% | 10.3% |
| 18 to 24 | 7.3% | 9.1% | 9.1% |
| 25 to 34 | 10.4% | 13.6% | 13.7% |
| 35 to 44 | 8.8% | 13.3% | 13.2% |
| 45 to 54 | 12.8% | 12.4% | 12.2% |
| 55 to 64 | 16.4% | 12.8% | 12.7% |
| 65 to 74 | 14.4% | 10% | 10.2% |
| 75 and older | 10.2% | 7% | 7% |
| No diploma | 4.9% | 9.5% | 10.4% |
| High school | 31% | 25.1% | 26% |
| Some college | 21.4% | 19.2% | 19.1% |
| Associate’s | 10.4% | 8.3% | 8.8% |
| Bachelor’s | 17.1% | 22.6% | 21.6% |
| Graduate | 15.3% | 15.3% | 14.1% |
U.S. Census Bureau · ACS 2020-2024 5-year estimates
Crete’s natural-hazard score from FEMA stands at 37 of 100. Of the losses FEMA expects locally, 58% come from inland flooding and 19% from tornadoes. Households here have drawn federal disaster aid in 9 declared disasters, most recently in 2024.
FEMA disaster declarations and aid · FEMA National Risk Index · OpenFEMA
Reported crimes fell from 151 to 91 over the last three FBI years, a drop beyond ordinary year-to-year swings.
The rate of reported violence in Crete is 1.6 per 1,000 residents. The property offense rate locally is 9.3 per 1,000 residents.
| Crete | Illinois towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Violent crimes per 1,000 (2025) | 1.6 per 1,000 residents | 1 | 1.6 |
| Property crimes per 1,000 (2025) | 9.3 per 1,000 residents | 7.9 | 9.9 |
FBI crime data, 2025 · crimes reported to police
70.5% of renter households pay 30% or more of their income for housing, against 47.9% across Illinois.
The share of households in Crete who live in a home they own: 90%. Typical home values rose 4.3% in the year to September 2026. For Crete, the going rate for rent is $1,309 a month.
| Crete | Illinois towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Households that own their home | 90% | 75% | 73% |
| Median rent | $1,309 a month | $1,128 a month | $1,185 a month |
Census ACS, 2020–24 · Zillow Home Value Index · Redfin Data Center
Against the 8,992 U.S. towns with household incomes like Crete’s, it is less healthy than 69%: its national edge comes with its incomes.
CDC measures, 32 in all: Crete beats Illinois on 5 and trails on 4. Among adults locally, 18% have been diagnosed with depression. In Crete, 40% of adults sleep under 7 hours, and 41% have obesity.
| Crete | Illinois towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Depression (CDC PLACES) | 18% | 22% | 23% |
| Sleep under 7 hours (CDC PLACES) | 40% | 35% | 36% |
| Obesity (CDC PLACES) | 41% | 37% | 35% |
| High blood pressure (CDC PLACES) | 39% | 35% | 35% |
| What stands out | Crete | IL |
|---|---|---|
| Fewer uninsured adults | 7.8% | 9.9% |
| More adults screened for colon cancer | 65.3% | 60.2% |
| More adults with obesity | 41.3% | 34% |
CDC PLACES 2025 · modeled estimates for adults · CMS · HRSA
5 within 15 miles of the center of Crete
About 3 of every 100 Crete residents are enrolled in college, against 6 across Illinois.
6 notable people were born in Crete.
Village in Illinois, United States
Crete is a village in Will County, Illinois, United States. It is a far south suburb of Chicago, 30 miles from the Loop and only 6 miles from the Indiana border. The population was 8,465 at the 2020 census. Originally named Wood's Corner, it was founded in 1836 by Vermonters Dyantha Wood, Willard Wood & Gary Neal.
From Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 · facts via Wikidata (CC0)
5 towns share a border with Crete.
It grades higher overall than all 3 graded towns on its borders; Steger (C−) comes closest. Steger next door grades lower for schools (D to Crete’s C+) and higher for cost of living (B to C).
| Town | IL rank | Overall | Cost | Safety | Schools | Health |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Crete | #515 | C+ | C | B− | C+ | B− |
| Steger | #649 | C− | B | C | D | C− |
| University Park | #705 | D | C | C | C | C |
| Goodenow | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Crete Township | #538 | C+ | C+ | — | C+ | B− |
| Bloom Township | #663 | C− | C+ | — | C− | C |
Crete Township and Bloom Township report no FBI crime data of their own. Goodenow isn’t graded (fewer than 1,000 residents, or not enough data). Compare Crete with a neighbor →
Short answers, built from the data on this page.
Crete grades C+ overall, better than 43% of U.S. towns and #515 of 767 in Illinois. It grades B− for health, B− for safety and C+ for schools.
Cost of living, which also weighs rents, property taxes and how many households pay 30% or more of their income for housing, grades C.
6 notable people were born here, including Porter J. McCumber and Alphonso Lingis.
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