Is Hometown a good place to live?
Hometown gives you more for your money than most places: a typical home costs about $212K, 2.3 years of the Chicago metro’s $91K median household income. It grades A overall, 134th of 767 graded towns in Illinois. On the plus side, the median household earns $61K. Hometown is more walkable than 96% of U.S. towns. On history, just 4 of Illinois’ 1,285 towns do worse.
What makes Hometown stand out
Where Hometown beats most towns.
Typical home value
98% of working residents leave Hometown for work
Where Hometown’s working residents go each day. Line width shows the share.
Census LEHD 2023
How Hometown grades
Each subject compared with towns across the country (schools within Illinois), ordered by how far Hometown is from typical.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Soldier Field and 154 more within 40 miles
Museums, parks, gardens and other places to visit around Hometown. Close and well known come first.
Big draw11 mi Stadium & arenaSoldier Field
Big draw16 mi Stadium & arenaWrigley Field
Big draw8 mi MuseumBarack Obama Presidential Center
Big draw9 mi Stadium & arenaRate Field
Big draw11 mi Stadium & arenaUnited Center
Big draw12 mi MuseumArt Institute of Chicago1.5M visitors a yearPhoto credits
Soldier 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
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Moving to Hometown: who provides what
Who provides power, water and the rest in Hometown, 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.
The data
Ordered by what stands out in Hometown.
Hometown pairs an A overall with homes cheaper than the Illinois norm, is healthier than towns with similar incomes and sends most of its workers to Chicago and beyond.
About one in three of Hometown’s working residents commute to Chicago
Hometown has 336 jobs for its 2,046 working residents: even if every job went to a resident, most would still commute out.
Most working residents leave Hometown for work: only 2% work in town. Jobs based in Hometown grew to 336 in 2023, 39 more than in 2013. At 28 minutes, Hometown’s average trip to work is against 26 minutes in Illinois’ towns and 25 minutes across U.S. towns.
| Hometown | Illinois towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median household income | $61,000 | $83,000 | $80,000 |
| Working residents who work in town | 2.5% | 8.4% | 8% |
| Average trip to work | 28 minutes | 26 minutes | 25 minutes |
| Below the poverty line | 6.9% | 8.4% | 9.6% |
Where working residents work
Census LEHD 2023 · ACS
Hometown earns a B+ for cost of living
Hometown grades A overall with a typical home of about $213K, below the Illinois typical value; only 48 of the 183 Illinois towns graded A− or better can say that.
The typical Hometown home is worth about $213,000, up 3.7% in a year, 28% below the Illinois typical home.
Typical home value
Zillow Home Value Index · Redfin Data Center
Hometown is healthier than 67% of U.S. towns
Against the 9,199 U.S. towns with household incomes like Hometown’s, it is healthier than 91%, so its B+ isn’t only a matter of income.
Hometown beats the Illinois average on 1 of 32 CDC measures and trails it on 0. 20% of Hometown adults binge drink, above both the Illinois town median (18%) and the median of U.S. towns (16%). 31% of Hometown adults have obesity.
| Hometown | Illinois towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Binge drink (CDC PLACES) | 20% | 18% | 16% |
| Obesity (CDC PLACES) | 31% | 37% | 35% |
| High blood pressure (CDC PLACES) | 31% | 35% | 35% |
| No health insurance, 18–64 (CDC PLACES) | 12% | 7.9% | 8.1% |
| What stands out | Hometown | IL |
|---|---|---|
| Fewer older adults who have lost all their teeth | 8.2% | 10.3% |
CDC PLACES 2025 · modeled estimates for adults · CMS · HRSA
Hometown has four seasons and pleasant summers
Hometown has chilly, snowy winters and warm summers. July afternoons reach 84°, January nights drop to 18° and about 39 inches of snow falls in a winter.
Typical low → high °F
NOAA U.S. Climate Normals, 1991–2020
Crime reported in Hometown
Hometown's reported crime rate is below Illinois's. The property crime rate in Hometown is 15.2 per 1,000 residents. Most reported incidents are property crimes, mainly thefts.
| Hometown | Illinois towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Property crimes per 1,000 (2024) | 15.2 per 1,000 residents | 9.3 | 11.5 |
| Violent crimes per 1,000 (2024) | 2.2 per 1,000 residents | 1.2 | 1.7 |
Violent crime per 1,000 residents
Property crime per 1,000 residents
FBI crime data, 2024 · crimes reported to police
Hometown faces a moderate natural-hazard risk, led by cold waves
Expected storm and flood damage is higher than in 53% of U.S. communities.
FEMA National Risk Index · OpenFEMA
Hometown has set aside 1.1% of its land for conservation
0.2 miles of trail in 2 parks and preserves.
| Hometown | Illinois towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Conserved land | 1.1% | 3.7% | 4.3% |
| Miles of trail per square mile | 0.4 miles per square mile | 0.3 | 0.4 |
| Biggest places to walk | Trails | Acres |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Patterson Park | 0.2 mi | 3 |
| 2. Unity Park | — | 3 |
Trails & parks © OpenStreetMap contributors · Conserved land: USGS PAD-US
Everything we know about Hometown
Colleges nearby
43 within 15 miles of the center of Hometown
About 9 of every 100 Hometown residents are enrolled in college, against 6 across Illinois.
About Hometown
City in Cook County, Illinois, US
Hometown is a city in Cook County, Illinois, United States. The population was 4,343 at the 2020 census.
From Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 · facts via Wikidata (CC0)
- Established
- 1953
- Area
- 0.5 sq mi
- Elevation
- 623 ft
- ZIP code
- 60456
- Area code
- 708
Hometown’s neighbors
One town shares a border with Hometown.
Hometown reports no FBI crime data of its own. Compare Hometown with a neighbor →
Questions about Hometown
Short answers, built from the data on this page.
Is Hometown, IL a good place to live?
By most measures, yes. Hometown grades A overall, better than 89% of U.S. towns and #134 of 767 in Illinois. It grades B+ for health and B− for schools.
Is Hometown, IL expensive?
Not for the area. Cost of living, which also weighs rents, property taxes and how many households pay 30% or more of their income for housing, grades B+.
What is Hometown, IL known for?
2 notable people were born here, including Jeff Rowe and John Beland.