Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Cooperstown’s best subject grades are an A for health and walkability and an A+ for history; its weakest is a D for cost of living. Cooperstown’s average trip to work is 12 minutes, against 25 minutes in New York’s towns and 25 minutes across U.S. towns. On history, just 37 of New York’s 1,216 towns do better. Cooperstown's civic life (library use, community groups, volunteering) is stronger than in 95% of U.S. towns. Cooperstown has fewer than 2,500 residents, so it gets subject grades but no overall grade.
Where Cooperstown beats most towns.
Where Cooperstown’s working residents go each day. Line width shows the share.
Census LEHD 2023
Each subject compared with towns across the country (schools within New York), ordered by how far Cooperstown is from typical.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Census counts: 1,597 in 1860, a peak of 2,909 in 1930, 1,794 in 2020. The archive holds 12 old photos and papers going back to 1850 and 3 maps from 1907 on.
Who provides power, water and the rest in Cooperstown, and how to reach them.
EPA SDWIS (Oct 9, 2026) · HIFLD + EIA-861 2025 · Census 2020 ZCTAs · NCES 2024–25 · registration: vote.gov, updated Aug 3, 2026.
Ordered by what stands out in Cooperstown.
About one in 3 of Cooperstown’s working residents works in town. Jobs based in Cooperstown fell to 3,431 in 2023, 961 fewer than in 2013. The top destinations are Otsego (40%), New York (5%) and Oneonta (4%).
| Cooperstown | New York towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Working residents who work in town | 35% | 10% | 8% |
| Below the poverty line | 12% | 9.5% | 9.6% |
| Median household income | $76,000 | $82,000 | $80,000 |
Census LEHD 2023 · ACS
Cooperstown beats the New York average on 13 of 32 CDC measures and trails it on 2. 14% of adults report frequent mental distress in Cooperstown, where New York’s towns sit at 16% and U.S. towns at 17%. 28% of adults have obesity in Cooperstown.
| Cooperstown | New York towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Frequent mental distress (CDC PLACES) | 14% | 16% | 17% |
| Obesity (CDC PLACES) | 28% | 33% | 35% |
| Smoke cigarettes (CDC PLACES) | 9.4% | 13% | 14% |
| Depression (CDC PLACES) | 18% | 21% | 23% |
| What stands out | Cooperstown | NY |
|---|---|---|
| Fewer adults facing food insecurity | 8.8% | 17.2% |
| Fewer adults facing housing insecurity | 8% | 14.5% |
| More adults who have had cancer | 10.9% | 7.7% |
CDC PLACES 2025 · modeled estimates for adults · CMS · HRSA
The typical Cooperstown home is worth about $411,000, up 10.5% in a year, 22% below the New York typical home. 59% of Cooperstown households own their home.
| Cooperstown | New York towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Households that own their home | 59% | 75% | 73% |
| Median rent | $1,223 a month | $1,101 a month | $1,185 a month |
Census ACS, 2020–24 · Zillow Home Value Index · Redfin Data Center
Cooperstown has cold, snowy winters and pleasant summers. The July high in Cooperstown is 80°F.
NOAA U.S. Climate Normals, 1991–2020
Expected storm and flood damage is higher than in 61% of U.S. communities. Since 1978, 4 flood insurance claims have been paid out in Cooperstown.
FEMA flood insurance claims · FEMA National Risk Index · OpenFEMA
1.4 miles of trail in 4 parks and preserves. Cooperstown’s trail density is 0.8 miles per square mile.
| Cooperstown | New York towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Miles of trail per square mile | 0.8 miles per square mile | 0.4 | 0.4 |
| Conserved land | 1.5% | 5.2% | 4.3% |
| Biggest places to walk | Trails | Acres |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Lake Front Park | — | 3 |
| 2. Cooper Park | — | 2 |
| 3. Badger Park | — | 1 |
Trails & parks © OpenStreetMap contributors · Conserved land: USGS PAD-US
Museums, parks, gardens and other places to visit around Cooperstown. Close and well known come first.
Big drawin town MuseumNational Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum315K visitors a year23 mi LandmarkFort Dayton27 mi CaveHowe Caverns
in town MuseumFenimore Art Museum
32 mi Stadium & arenaUtica Memorial Auditorium
32 mi MuseumMunson-Williams-Proctor Arts InstituteNational Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum: Beyond My Ken, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Fenimore Art Museum: Ser Amantio di Nicolao, CC BY-SA 3.0 · Utica Memorial Auditorium: Doug Kerr, CC BY-SA 2.0 · Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute: Kenneth C. Zirkel, CC BY-SA 4.0
None within 15 miles of Cooperstown; the nearest are
About 10 of every 100 Cooperstown residents are enrolled in college, against 7 across New York.
16 notable people were born in Cooperstown.
Village in New York, United States
Cooperstown is a village in and the county seat of Otsego County, New York, United States. Most of the village lies within the town of Otsego, but some of the eastern part is in the town of Middlefield. Located at the foot of Otsego Lake in the Central New York Region, Cooperstown is approximately 60 miles (97 kilometers) west of Albany, 67 mi (108 km) southeast of Syracuse and 145 mi (233 km) northwest of New York City. The population of the village was 1,794 as of the 2020 census. Cooperstown is the home of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum. Other attractions in the village include the Fenimore Farm & Country Village, which opened in 1944 on farmland that had once belonged to …
From Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 · facts via Wikidata (CC0)
Short answers, built from the data on this page.
Yes. That is 6 years of the area's median household income ($68,885 across the Oneonta, NY area). Cost of living, which also weighs rents, property taxes and how many households pay 30% or more of their income for housing, grades D.
16 notable people were born here, including Robert L. Gibson and Kenneth Bainbridge.
