Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Home to 3 places on the National Register of Historic Places.
Morris is a solid, middle-of-the-road choice. It grades B overall, 442nd among Illinois's 767 graded towns, with no subject far below average. Its best mark is incomes: the median household earns $77K. It also does better than most on schools: its schools outperform 65% of the state's. A typical home there costs about $314K, 3.5 years of the Chicago metro’s $91K median household income. 20% of working residents work locally in Morris, against 8.3% in Illinois’ towns and 8% across U.S. towns. Its National Register listings include Coleman Hardware Company Building and Morris Wide Water Canal Boat Site.
Where Morris beats most towns.
Each subject compared with towns across the country (schools within Illinois), ordered by how far Morris is from typical.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Census counts: 2,105 in 1860, 14,163 in 2020. The archive holds 6 old photos and papers going back to 1874 and 6 maps from 1892 on.
3 places on the National Register of Historic Places.
Who provides power, water and the rest in Morris, 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 Morris.
Morris trades workers with Chicago and other neighbors, but it carries more natural-hazard risk than most of Illinois (mostly inland flooding).
FEMA rates its natural-hazard risk higher than 94% of Illinois towns, with expected losses of about $418 per resident a year; that rating is what its C− for hazard risk is built on. 58 flood insurance claims have been filed here, and 10 properties have flooded more than once.
The FEMA risk score in Morris is 82 of 100. Since 1978, 58 flood insurance claims have been paid out in Morris.
FEMA flood insurance claims · FEMA National Risk Index · OpenFEMA
3.0 miles of trail in 12 parks and preserves. The biggest park or preserve is Gebhard Woods State Park, at 49 acres.
| Morris | Illinois towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Conserved land | 2% | 3.7% | 4.3% |
| Miles of trail per square mile | 0.2 miles per square mile | 0.3 | 0.4 |
| Biggest places to walk | Trails | Acres |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Saratoga Park | 0.4 mi | 9 |
| 2. Gebhard Woods State Park | 0.3 mi | 49 |
| 3. West Side Park | 0.3 mi | 10 |
Trails & parks © OpenStreetMap contributors · Conserved land: USGS PAD-US
Morris has chilly winters and warm summers. July afternoons reach 85°, January nights drop to 16° and about 25 inches of snow falls in a winter.
NOAA U.S. Climate Normals, 1991–2020
Morris has about as many jobs (7,299) as working residents, but only 1,433 people both live and work here. The average commute takes 21.5 minutes, against 27.8 across Illinois.
About one in 5 of Morris’s working residents works in town. Jobs based in Morris grew to 7,299 in 2023, 1,515 more than in 2013. Morris’ average trip to work is 22 minutes.
| Morris | Illinois towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average trip to work | 22 minutes | 26 minutes | 25 minutes |
| Below the poverty line | 7.7% | 8.4% | 9.6% |
Census LEHD 2023 · ACS
FBI crime data, 2025 · crimes reported to police
Morris beats the Illinois average on 0 of 32 CDC measures and trails it on 2. 19% of adults binge drink in Morris.
| Morris | Illinois towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Binge drink (CDC PLACES) | 19% | 18% | 16% |
| No health insurance, 18–64 (CDC PLACES) | 9.2% | 7.9% | 8.1% |
| Sleep under 7 hours (CDC PLACES) | 35% | 35% | 36% |
| Obesity (CDC PLACES) | 37% | 37% | 35% |
| What stands out | Morris | IL |
|---|---|---|
| More adults with COPD | 7.5% | 6.3% |
| More adults who have had cancer | 8.9% | 7.6% |
CDC PLACES 2025 · modeled estimates for adults · CMS · HRSA
57% of Morris households own their home. The typical Morris home is worth about $314,000, up 3.4% in a year, 6% above the Illinois typical home.
| Morris | Illinois towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Households that own their home | 57% | 75% | 73% |
| Median rent | $1,132 a month | $1,128 a month | $1,185 a month |
Census ACS, 2020–24 · Zillow Home Value Index · Redfin Data Center
None within 15 miles of Morris; the nearest are
About 6 of every 100 Morris residents are enrolled in college, about the same as Illinois.
3 places in Morris on the National Register of Historic Places.
14 notable people were born in Morris.
City in Illinois, United States
Morris is a city in and the county seat of Grundy County, Illinois, United States and part of the southwest Chicago metropolitan area. The population was 14,163 as of the 2020 census. A team of ten anthropologists and sociologists from the nearby University of Chicago studied the city in depth and reported its findings in W. Lloyd Warner, editor, Democracy in Jonesville: A Study of Quality and Inequality (1949).
From Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 · facts via Wikidata (CC0)
3 towns share a border with Morris.
| Town | IL rank | Overall | Cost | Safety | Schools | Health |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Morris | #442 | B | B− | C+ | B+ | B |
| Morris Township | #468 | B− | B− | — | C+ | B |
| Wauponsee Township | — | — | B+ | — | C+ | B |
| Erienna Township | — | — | B | — | B+ | B |
Wauponsee Township and Erienna Township have fewer than 2,500 residents, so they get subject grades but no overall grade. Morris Township, Wauponsee Township and Erienna Township report no FBI crime data of their own. Compare Morris with a neighbor →
Short answers, built from the data on this page.
By most measures, yes. Morris grades B overall, better than 56% of U.S. towns and #442 of 767 in Illinois. It grades B for health, C+ for safety and B+ for schools. Hazard risk 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 B−.
14 notable people were born here, including Walter M. Pierce and Albert Kingsbury.
