Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
For most people who can afford it, yes. Ithaca grades B overall, 314th among New York's 745 graded towns. CDC estimates put its residents' health ahead of 94% of the country. What holds it back is price: the typical home is worth about $369K, 5 years of the Ithaca metro’s $74K median household income. 75% of adults 25 and older hold a bachelor’s degree or more in Ithaca, against 32% in New York’s towns and 29% across U.S. towns. On civic life, just 27 of New York’s 1,187 towns do better. Ithaca is home to Ithaca College.
Where Ithaca beats most towns.
Each subject compared with towns across the country (schools within New York), ordered by how far Ithaca is from typical.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Census counts: 8,462 in 1870, 32,108 in 2020. The archive holds 18 old photos and papers going back to 1828 and 4 maps from 1893 on.
7 places on the National Register of Historic Places.
Who provides power, water and the rest in Ithaca, 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 Ithaca.
Ithaca is shaped by its college students, draws workers from Ithaca and beyond and has less diabetes than most of New York.
46 miles of trail in 18 parks and preserves. Ithaca’s trail density is 1.5 miles per square mile. The biggest place to walk is Buttermilk Falls State Park, 653 acres with 7.1 miles of trail.
| Biggest places to walk | Trails | Acres |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Buttermilk Falls State Park | 7.1 mi | 653 |
| 2. Robert H. Treman State Park | 5.4 mi | 321 |
| 3. South Hill Natural Area East | 4.1 mi | 336 |
Trails & parks © OpenStreetMap contributors · Conserved land: USGS PAD-US
Its public schools are run by the Ithaca City School District. Two of its 6 schools are below, each with why it’s listed. The largest public high school is Tompkins-Seneca-Tioga Boces, with 309 students.
| School | Level | Students | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dewitt Middle SchoolLargest public middle schoolGrades 6–8 | Grades 6–8 | 559 | B− |
| Tompkins-Seneca-Tioga BocesLargest public high schoolGrades K–12 | Grades K–12 | 309 | – |
NCES · EDFacts · graded within NY on state tests and graduation
Its widest gap with New York is diabetes: 6.2% of its 60,037 adults have diabetes, against 11.5% statewide.
23% of adults have high blood pressure in Ithaca. Among 755 New York towns, just 8 have a lower share of adults who have diabetes than Ithaca. 9.5% of adults report frequent physical distress in Ithaca.
| Ithaca | New York towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High blood pressure (CDC PLACES) | 23% | 34% | 35% |
| Obesity (CDC PLACES) | 23% | 33% | 35% |
| Diabetes (CDC PLACES) | 6.2% | 11% | 12% |
| Frequent physical distress (CDC PLACES) | 9.5% | 14% | 14% |
| What stands out | Ithaca | NY |
|---|---|---|
| Fewer adults with diabetes | 6.2% | 11.5% |
| Fewer adults who have had a stroke | 2% | 3.4% |
| More adults with depression | 22.8% | 17.5% |
CDC PLACES 2025 · modeled estimates for adults · CMS · HRSA
18,717 jobs are based in Ithaca, 2.8 for every working resident, so most of the people who work here commute in. The average commute takes 16.6 minutes, against 32.6 across New York.
38% of Ithaca working residents work locally. Jobs based in Ithaca grew to 18,717 in 2023, 1,182 more than in 2013. The average trip to work in Ithaca is 17 minutes.
| Ithaca | New York towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Working residents who work in town | 38% | 10% | 8% |
| Work from home | 25% | 12% | 11% |
| Average trip to work | 17 minutes | 25 minutes | 25 minutes |
| Median household income | $106,000 | $82,000 | $80,000 |
Census LEHD 2023 · ACS
Ithaca has chilly, snowy winters and pleasant summers. July afternoons reach 81°, January nights drop to 16° and about 63 inches of snow falls in a winter.
NOAA U.S. Climate Normals, 1991–2020
Expected storm and flood damage is lower than in 53% of U.S. communities. Since 1979, 14 flood insurance claims have been paid out in Ithaca.
FEMA flood insurance claims · FEMA National Risk Index · OpenFEMA
Museums, parks, gardens and other places to visit around Ithaca. Close and well known come first.
25 mi LakeSeneca Lake
21 mi LakeCayuga Lake
17 mi State parkWatkins Glen State Park
10 mi State parkTaughannock Falls State Park
4 mi Stadium & arenaSchoellkopf Field
4 mi MuseumHerbert F. Johnson Museum of Art80K visitors a yearSeneca Lake: RochesterNY, Public domain · Cayuga Lake: The original uploader was Cornellrockey at English Wikipedia. Later versions we, CC BY-SA 2.5 · Watkins Glen State Park: Flickr user: Peter Rivera Stamford, Connecticut https://www.flickr.com/people/ri, CC BY 2.0 · Taughannock Falls State Park: Michael C. Rygel, CC BY-SA 3.0 · Schoellkopf Field: Alex Sergeev, (www.asergeev.com) Originally uploaded by en:User:Cornell010, CC BY-SA 3.0 · Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art: Dmadeo, CC BY-SA 3.0
3 within 15 miles of the center of Ithaca
College town 33 of every 100 Ithaca residents are enrolled in college, against 7 across New York.
19,930 counted in 2010 and 22,283 in 2020; an estimated 20,670 in 2025.
Since 2020 the trend has turned: down 7.3%, after 11.8% growth in the decade before.
U.S. Census 2010 & 2020 counts · Census Bureau estimate, July 1, 2025
7 places in Ithaca on the National Register of Historic Places.
53 notable people were born in Ithaca.
City in New York, United States
Ithaca () is a city in the U.S. state of New York. It is situated on the southern shore of Cayuga Lake in the Finger Lakes region of Upstate New York. With a population of 32,108 as of the 2020 census, Ithaca is the largest community in the Ithaca metropolitan statistical area, which includes all 103,558 residents of Tompkins County, of which it is the county seat. The city is named after the Greek island of Ithaca, home of the protagonist Odysseus in Homer's Odyssey. Ithaca is a college town best known for hosting Cornell University, an Ivy League university founded in 1865, as well as Ithaca College. Until the late 18th century, present-day Ithaca was inhabited by the Cayuga people of the…
From Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 · facts via Wikidata (CC0)
9 towns share a border with Ithaca.
Dryden next door grades lower for schools (C− to Ithaca’s B) and higher for cost of living (C to D−).
| Town | NY rank | Overall | Cost | Safety | Schools | Health |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ithaca | #314 | B | D− | — | B | A |
| Dryden | #630 | C− | C | — | C− | A− |
| Lansing | #378 | B− | D− | — | A− | A− |
| Lansing | #374 | B− | D− | — | B+ | A+ |
| Enfield | #296 | B | C | — | B | A |
| Northeast Ithaca | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Cayuga Heights | #241 | B+ | D− | — | B | A+ |
| Danby | #339 | B | C+ | — | B | A− |
Ithaca, Dryden, Lansing, Lansing, Enfield, Cayuga Heights and Danby report no FBI crime data of their own. Northeast Ithaca isn’t graded (fewer than 1,000 residents, or not enough data). Compare Ithaca with a neighbor →
Short answers, built from the data on this page.
For most people who can afford it, yes. Ithaca grades B overall, better than 60% of U.S. towns and #314 of 745 in New York. It grades A for health and B for schools. Cost of living is its weak spot, with a D−.
Yes. Cost of living, which also weighs rents, property taxes and how many households pay 30% or more of their income for housing, grades D−.
53 notable people were born here, including David Foster Wallace and Alex Haley.
