Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Melrose Park is a solid, middle-of-the-road choice. It grades C− overall, 670th among Illinois's 767 graded towns, with no subject far below average. Its best mark is incomes: the median household earns $66K. Expect to pay for it: the typical home is worth about $322K, 3.5 years of the Chicago metro’s $91K median household income. Melrose Park is more walkable than 94% of U.S. towns. Only 40 of Illinois’ 1,240 towns score lower on civic life. Melrose Park's schools rank behind 83% of the state's.
Where Melrose Park beats most towns.
Where Melrose Park’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 Melrose Park is from typical.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Census counts: 200 in 1880, 24,796 in 2020. The archive holds 30 old photos and papers going back to 1920 and 7 maps from 1891 on.
Museums, parks, gardens and other places to visit around Melrose Park. Close and well known come first.
Big draw11 mi Stadium & arenaWrigley Field
Big draw13 mi Stadium & arenaSoldier Field
Big draw16 mi MuseumBarack Obama Presidential Center
Big draw10 mi Stadium & arenaUnited Center
Big draw13 mi Stadium & arenaRate Field
Big draw12 mi MuseumArt Institute of Chicago1.5M visitors a yearWrigley Field: Ryan Dickey, CC BY 2.0 · Soldier Field: Photo by Joon Han Contact: [email protected], CC BY-SA 3.0 · Barack Obama Presidential Center: AlphaBeta135, CC0 · United Center: User:JeremyA, CC BY-SA 2.5 · Rate Field: User Enoch Lai on en.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0 · Art Institute of Chicago: ajay_suresh, CC BY 2.0
Who provides power, water and the rest in Melrose Park, 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 Melrose Park.
Melrose Park draws workers from Chicago and beyond, but it reports more crime than Bellwood and its other graded neighbors and has a long record of flood insurance claims.
19,466 jobs are based in Melrose Park, 2 for every working resident, so most of the people who work here commute in.
Most working residents leave Melrose Park for work: only 10% work in town. 5.9% of Melrose Park workers work from home, below both the Illinois town median (11%) and the median of U.S. towns (11%). 12% of residents live below the poverty line in Melrose Park.
| Melrose Park | Illinois towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Work from home | 5.9% | 11% | 11% |
| Below the poverty line | 12% | 8.4% | 9.6% |
| Median household income | $66,000 | $83,000 | $80,000 |
| Average trip to work | 27 minutes | 26 minutes | 25 minutes |
Census LEHD 2023 · ACS
Each of the 6 graded towns on its borders reports less crime per resident, from Bellwood (C+) to Stone Park (A).
At 3 per 1,000 residents, Melrose Park’s violent crime rate is above both Illinois’ towns (1.2) and U.S. towns (1.7). The property crime rate in Melrose Park is 17.7 per 1,000 residents.
| Melrose Park | Illinois towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Violent crimes per 1,000 (2024) | 3 per 1,000 residents | 1.2 | 1.7 |
| Property crimes per 1,000 (2024) | 17.7 per 1,000 residents | 9.3 | 11.5 |
FBI crime data, 2024 · crimes reported to police
Melrose Park has chilly, snowy winters and warm summers. July afternoons reach 84°, January nights drop to 17° and about 42 inches of snow falls in a winter.
NOAA U.S. Climate Normals, 1991–2020
374 flood insurance claims have been filed here, and 64 properties have flooded more than once.
Expected storm and flood damage is higher than in 63% of U.S. communities. Since 1979, 374 flood insurance claims have been paid out in Melrose Park.
FEMA flood insurance claims · FEMA National Risk Index · OpenFEMA
32% of Melrose Park adults worry about having enough food. Melrose Park beats the Illinois average on 3 of 32 CDC measures and trails it on 17. 27% of Melrose Park adults 18 to 64 have no health insurance.
| Melrose Park | Illinois towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Food insecurity (CDC PLACES) | 32% | 13% | 14% |
| No health insurance, 18–64 (CDC PLACES) | 27% | 7.9% | 8.1% |
| Fair or poor health (CDC PLACES) | 27% | 18% | 19% |
| Yearly checkup (CDC PLACES) | 73% | 78% | 79% |
| What stands out | Melrose Park | IL |
|---|---|---|
| Fewer adults who have had cancer | 5.1% | 7.6% |
| Fewer adults with arthritis | 19.7% | 24.2% |
| More uninsured adults | 26.7% | 9.9% |
CDC PLACES 2025 · modeled estimates for adults · CMS · HRSA
Typical home values rose 6.4% in the year to September 2026.
| Melrose Park | Illinois towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Households that own their home | 57% | 75% | 73% |
| Median rent | $1,176 a month | $1,128 a month | $1,185 a month |
Zillow Home Value Index · Redfin Data Center
0.5 miles of trail in 7 parks and preserves. The biggest park or preserve is Thatcher Woods Preserve, at 31 acres. Melrose Park’s trail density is 0.1 miles per square mile.
| Melrose Park | Illinois towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Miles of trail per square mile | 0.1 miles per square mile | 0.3 | 0.4 |
| Conserved land | 1.7% | 3.7% | 4.3% |
| Biggest places to walk | Trails | Acres |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Thatcher Woods Preserve | — | 31 |
| 2. Bulger Park | — | 6 |
| 3. Bataan Park | — | 4 |
Trails & parks © OpenStreetMap contributors · Conserved land: USGS PAD-US
51 within 15 miles of the center of Melrose Park
About 5 of every 100 Melrose Park residents are enrolled in college, about the same as Illinois.
19 notable people were born in Melrose Park.
Village in Illinois, United States
Melrose Park is a village in Leyden and Proviso Townships, Cook County, Illinois, United States. It is a suburb of Chicago. As of the 2020 census it had a population of 24,796. The suburb was the home of Kiddieland Amusement Park from 1929 until 2010 (it closed in September 2009 before it was demolished in 2010 and the sign of Kiddieland was relocated to the Melrose Park Public Library; a Costco warehouse store now stands in its place), the Shrine of Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, Stern Pinball, Inc., the Melrose Park Taste, and the now-defunct Maywood Park horse racing track. There is a Metra railroad station in Melrose Park with daily service to Chicago. Melrose Park is home to Gottlieb Memorial…
From Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 · facts via Wikidata (CC0)
10 towns share a border with Melrose Park.
River Forest next door grades higher for schools (A+ to Melrose Park’s C−) and lower for cost of living (D to C).
| Town | IL rank | Overall | Cost | Safety | Schools | Health |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Melrose Park | #670 | C− | C | C | C− | C+ |
| Stone Park | #615 | C | C− | A | D | C− |
| Northlake | #574 | C | C+ | B− | C− | B− |
| River Grove | #475 | B− | C+ | B− | C | B+ |
| Franklin Park | #511 | C+ | C | B− | C+ | B |
| Maywood | #714 | D | C | — | C− | C− |
| Bellwood | #682 | C− | C | C+ | D | C+ |
| River Forest · River Forest Township | #241 | A− | D | C+ | A+ | A+ |
Maywood reports no FBI crime data of its own. River Forest Township and River Forest are one community, graded once. Compare Melrose Park with a neighbor →
Short answers, built from the data on this page.
Melrose Park grades C− overall, better than 17% of U.S. towns and #670 of 767 in Illinois. It grades C+ for health, C for safety and C− for schools. Schools is its weak spot, with a C−.
Cost of living, which also weighs rents, property taxes and how many households pay 30% or more of their income for housing, grades C.
19 notable people were born here, including Michael Finley and Corey Maggette.
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