Is Palos Hills a good place to live?
Palos Hills grades A overall, ranked 120th of 767 in Illinois, with clear strengths and some subjects that lag. Its schools rank ahead of 92% of Illinois towns and it reports less crime per resident than 81% of U.S. towns. On the other side, FEMA rates its natural-hazard risk higher than 92% of U.S. communities, with inland flooding at the top. Palos Hills’ average trip to work is 35 minutes, where Illinois’ towns sit at 26 minutes and U.S. towns at 25 minutes. Palos Hills is easier to get around on foot or by transit than 89% of U.S. towns. On history, just 2 of Illinois’ 1,285 towns do worse.
What makes Palos Hills stand out
Where Palos Hills beats most towns, and one thing worth knowing.
Violent crime per 1,000 residents
Moraine Valley Community College calls Palos Hills home
How Palos Hills grades
Each subject compared with towns across the country (schools within Illinois), ordered by how far Palos Hills is from typical.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Soldier Field and 153 more within 40 miles
Museums, parks, gardens and other places to visit around Palos Hills. Close and well known come first.
Big draw16 mi Stadium & arenaSoldier Field
Big draw19 mi Stadium & arenaWrigley Field
Big draw14 mi MuseumBarack Obama Presidential Center
Big draw13 mi Stadium & arenaRate Field
Big draw15 mi Stadium & arenaUnited Center
Big draw16 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 Palos Hills: who provides what
Who provides power, water and the rest in Palos Hills, 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 Palos Hills.
Palos Hills sees little violent crime, but it carries more natural-hazard risk than most of Illinois (mostly inland flooding) and has commutes longer than most of Illinois.
Conserved land covers 3.2% of Palos Hills
3.1 miles of trail in 12 parks and preserves. Palos Hills’ trail density is 0.7 miles per square mile. The biggest park or preserve is Crooked Creek Woods, at 82 acres.
| Palos Hills | Illinois towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Miles of trail per square mile | 0.7 miles per square mile | 0.3 | 0.4 |
| Conserved land | 3.2% | 3.7% | 4.3% |
| Biggest places to walk | Trails | Acres |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Bennett Park | 0.6 mi | 40 |
| 2. Indian Woods Park | 0.5 mi | 9 |
| 3. Crooked Creek Woods | — | 82 |
Trails & parks © OpenStreetMap contributors · Conserved land: USGS PAD-US
The FEMA risk score in Palos Hills is higher than in most of Illinois or the rest of the country
FEMA rates its natural-hazard risk higher than 99% of Illinois towns, with expected losses of about $618 per resident a year; that rating is what its D for hazard risk is built on.
Since 1979, 49 flood insurance claims have been paid out in Palos Hills. Among 768 Illinois towns, just 8 have a higher FEMA risk score than Palos Hills.
FEMA flood insurance claims · FEMA National Risk Index · OpenFEMA
For safety, Palos Hills earns an A−
Violent crime is rare: 5 reported in 2025, 0.3 per 1,000 residents.
The violent crime rate in Palos Hills is 0.3 per 1,000 residents.
| Palos Hills | Illinois towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Violent crimes per 1,000 (2025) | 0.3 per 1,000 residents | 1 | 1.6 |
| Property crimes per 1,000 (2025) | 6.4 per 1,000 residents | 7.9 | 9.9 |
Violent crime per 1,000 residents
Property crime per 1,000 residents
FBI crime data, 2025 · crimes reported to police
Palos Hills ranks healthier than 77% of the country’s towns
Palos Hills beats the Illinois average on 2 of 32 CDC measures and trails it on 1. 29% of Palos Hills adults have obesity.
| Palos Hills | Illinois towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Obesity (CDC PLACES) | 29% | 37% | 35% |
| Binge drink (CDC PLACES) | 20% | 18% | 16% |
| High blood pressure (CDC PLACES) | 31% | 35% | 35% |
| Sleep under 7 hours (CDC PLACES) | 34% | 35% | 36% |
| What stands out | Palos Hills | IL |
|---|---|---|
| Fewer adults facing a utility shut-off | 6.7% | 7.8% |
| Fewer adults with obesity | 29.3% | 34% |
| More adults who have had cancer | 8.7% | 7.6% |
CDC PLACES 2025 · modeled estimates for adults · CMS · HRSA
With 0.6 jobs for every working resident, most of Palos Hills’ workers commute out
The average commute for its 7,602 working residents takes 35.2 minutes, against 27.8 across Illinois.
Most working residents leave Palos Hills for work: only 5% work in town. Jobs based in Palos Hills fell to 4,349 in 2023, 275 fewer than in 2013. The top destinations are Chicago (26%), Oak Lawn (2%) and Hickory Hills (2%).
| Palos Hills | Illinois towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Working residents who work in town | 4.7% | 8.4% | 8% |
| Work from home | 12% | 11% | 11% |
Where working residents work
Census LEHD 2023 · ACS
Four seasons and pleasant summers in Palos Hills
Palos Hills has chilly, snowy winters and warm summers. July afternoons reach 84°, January nights drop to 17° and about 39 inches of snow falls in a winter.
Typical low → high °F
NOAA U.S. Climate Normals, 1991–2020
The typical home in Palos Hills is valued at about $297K
62.6% of renter households pay 30% or more of their income for housing, against 47.9% across Illinois.
The typical Palos Hills home is worth about $297,000, up 4.8% in a year, close to the Illinois typical home.
| Palos Hills | Illinois towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median rent | $1,269 a month | $1,128 a month | $1,185 a month |
| Households that own their home | 77% | 75% | 73% |
Typical home value
Zillow Home Value Index · Redfin Data Center
Everything we know about Palos Hills
Colleges nearby
33 within 15 miles of the center of Palos Hills
About 5 of every 100 Palos Hills residents are enrolled in college, about the same as Illinois.
95% of working residents leave Palos Hills for work
Where Palos Hills’s working residents go each day. Line width shows the share.
Census LEHD 2023
About Palos Hills
City in Illinois, United States
Palos Hills is a city in Cook County, Illinois, United States. It is a southwest suburb of Chicago. The city was established in 1958 and had reached a population of 18,530 in the 2020 census. It is named after Palos de la Frontera, Spain, from which Christopher Columbus set sail to North America. Moraine Valley Community College and Amos Alonzo Stagg High School are its main schools.
From Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 · facts via Wikidata (CC0)
- Established
- 1958
- Area
- 4.3 sq mi
- Elevation
- 591 ft
- ZIP code
- 60465
- Area code
- 708
Palos Hills’s neighbors
5 towns share a border with Palos Hills.
It grades higher overall than all 5 graded towns on its borders; Palos Park (A) comes closest.
| Town | IL rank | Overall | Cost | Safety | Schools | Health |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Palos Hills | #120 | A | C | A− | A | A− |
| Hickory Hills | #205 | A− | C | B+ | A | B+ |
| Bridgeview | #350 | B+ | C | — | A− | B+ |
| Worth | #560 | C+ | C+ | B− | B | B− |
| Palos Park | #140 | A | D | A | A | A |
| Palos Heights | #206 | A− | D | B+ | A− | A |
Bridgeview reports no FBI crime data of its own. Compare Palos Hills with a neighbor →
Questions about Palos Hills
Short answers, built from the data on this page.
Is Palos Hills, IL a good place to live?
By most measures, yes. Palos Hills grades A overall, better than 91% of U.S. towns and #120 of 767 in Illinois. It grades A− for health, A− for safety and A for schools. Hazard risk is its weak spot, with a D.
Is Palos Hills, IL expensive?
That is 3.3 years of the area's median household income ($90,887 across the Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN metro area). Cost of living, which also weighs rents, property taxes and how many households pay 30% or more of their income for housing, grades C.