Each edition grades its towns against each other only.
Turtle Creek gives you more for your money than most places: a typical home costs about $89K, 1.2 years of the Pittsburgh metro’s $76K median household income. It grades C+ overall, 750th among Pennsylvania's 1032 graded towns. The low prices come with trade-offs. CDC estimates put its residents' health behind 88% of the country and its public schools trail 86% of Pennsylvania towns on state tests and graduation. On the plus side, crime is low: it reports less per resident than 78% of U.S. towns. Turtle Creek is among the most walkable places in the country. Turtle Creek has 2 places on the National Register. Only 2 of the 1,035 Pennsylvania towns we compare have a lower share of households owning their home than Turtle Creek.
Where Turtle Creek beats most towns.
Turtle Creek High SchoolWhere Turtle Creek’s working residents go each day. Line width shows the share.
Census LEHD 2023
Each subject compared with towns across the country (schools within Pennsylvania), ordered by how far Turtle Creek is from typical.
Its grades run from A+ for walkability (better than 99% of comparable towns) to D for health (better than 12%), so the C+ overall blends very different results.
How TownRatings grades towns →
Census counts: 548 in 1880, a peak of 12,363 in 1950, 5,114 in 2020. The archive holds 6 old photos and papers going back to 1897 and 4 maps from 1904 on.
2 places on the National Register of Historic Places.
Museums, parks, gardens and other places to visit around Turtle Creek. Close and well known come first.
Big draw11 mi Stadium & arenaAcrisure Stadium
Big draw39 mi MuseumFallingwater
3 mi Theme parkKennywood
10 mi LandmarkFort Duquesne
10 mi Stadium & arenaPNC Park
9 mi Stadium & arenaPPG Paints ArenaAcrisure Stadium: Fo2grfr, CC BY-SA 4.0 · Fallingwater: Carol M. Highsmith, Public domain · Kennywood: Ski2007 of English Wikipedia, Public domain · Fort Duquesne: Sébastien Paquin, CC BY-SA 3.0 · PNC Park: alpineinc, CC BY 2.0 · PPG Paints Arena: Jleedev, CC BY-SA 4.0
Who provides power, water and the rest in Turtle Creek, and how to reach them.
EPA SDWIS (Oct 9, 2026) · HIFLD + EIA-861 2025 · Census 2020 ZCTAs · NCES 2024–25 · registration: vote.gov, updated Nov 18, 2024.
Ordered by what stands out in Turtle Creek.
Turtle Creek is healthier than towns with similar incomes and is safe by national standards but not by Pennsylvania’s; it also carries more natural-hazard risk than most of Pennsylvania (mostly inland flooding).
At 1.2 years of the Pittsburgh metro’s $76K median household income, the typical home (about $89K) costs less against local pay than in 98% of Pennsylvania towns; that ratio is one input to its A for cost of living. Values fell 11.7% in the past year while the Pennsylvania typical home rose 2.2%.
Turtle Creek’s median rent is $682 a month, where Pennsylvania’s towns sit at $1,116 a month and U.S. towns at $1,185 a month. Typical home values fell 12% in the year to September 2026.
Census ACS, 2020–24 · Zillow Home Value Index · Redfin Data Center
Its public schools are run by Woodland Hills SD. One of its 2 schools is below, with why it’s listed.
| School | Level | Students | Letter |
|---|---|---|---|
| Turtle Creek EL STEAM AcademyLargest public elementary schoolGrades PK–5 | Grades PK–5 | 580 | C |
NCES · EDFacts · graded within PA on state tests and graduation
Against the 4,341 U.S. towns with household incomes like Turtle Creek’s, it is less healthy than 61%, so its D isn’t only a matter of income.
18% of Turtle Creek adults report frequent physical distress, above both Pennsylvania’s towns (14%) and U.S. towns (14%). 21% of Turtle Creek adults smoke cigarettes. Turtle Creek beats the Pennsylvania average on 1 of 26 CDC measures and trails it on 17.
| Turtle Creek | Pennsylvania towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Frequent physical distress (CDC PLACES) | 18% | 14% | 14% |
| Smoke cigarettes (CDC PLACES) | 21% | 16% | 14% |
| Fair or poor health (CDC PLACES) | 26% | 19% | 19% |
| Diabetes (CDC PLACES) | 15% | 11% | 12% |
| What stands out | Turtle Creek | PA |
|---|---|---|
| More adults treating high blood pressure | 82.2% | 79.2% |
| More older adults who have lost all their teeth | 24.3% | 14.5% |
CDC PLACES 2025 · modeled estimates for adults · CMS · HRSA
At 9.1 crimes per 1,000 residents a year, it reports less crime than 59% of Pennsylvania’s graded towns. Reported crimes rose from 4 to 73 over the last three FBI years, a rise beyond ordinary year-to-year swings.
Turtle Creek’s violent crime rate is 2.7 per 1,000 residents.
| Turtle Creek | Pennsylvania towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Violent crimes per 1,000 (2025) | 2.7 per 1,000 residents | 0.7 | 1.6 |
| Property crimes per 1,000 (2025) | 12.3 per 1,000 residents | 5.7 | 9.9 |
FBI crime data, 2025 · crimes reported to police
Most working residents leave Turtle Creek for work: only 4% work in town. 18% of residents live below the poverty line in Turtle Creek. Since 2013, Turtle Creek has lost 227 jobs, to 1,223 in 2023.
| Turtle Creek | Pennsylvania towns | U.S. towns | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Below the poverty line | 18% | 7.6% | 9.6% |
| Median household income | $46,000 | $81,000 | $80,000 |
| Average trip to work | 30 minutes | 26 minutes | 25 minutes |
| Working residents who work in town | 4.2% | 6.3% | 8% |
Census LEHD 2023 · ACS
Turtle Creek has chilly winters and pleasant summers. July afternoons reach 84°, January nights drop to 22° and about 25 inches of snow falls in a winter.
NOAA U.S. Climate Normals, 1991–2020
FEMA rates its natural-hazard risk higher than 87% of Pennsylvania towns, with expected losses of about $353 per resident a year; that rating is what its C for hazard risk is built on. 120 flood insurance claims have been filed here, and 22 properties have flooded more than once.
The FEMA risk score in Turtle Creek is 62 of 100. Since 1979, 120 flood insurance claims have been paid out in Turtle Creek.
FEMA flood insurance claims · FEMA National Risk Index · OpenFEMA
14 within 15 miles of the center of Turtle Creek
About 6 of every 100 Turtle Creek residents are enrolled in college, about the same as Pennsylvania.
7 notable people were born in Turtle Creek.
Borough in Pennsylvania, US
Turtle Creek is a borough in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, 12 miles (19 km) southeast of Pittsburgh. The population was 5,114 at the 2020 census. George Westinghouse constructed a manufacturing plant nearby. Turtle Creek takes its name from a small stream that flows into the Monongahela River. Before white settlers arrived, there was a small village of Native Americans living there from the Turtle Clan of the Iroquois Nation. (See: East Pittsburgh and Wilmerding.)
From Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0 · facts via Wikidata (CC0)
6 towns share a border with Turtle Creek.
Monroeville next door grades higher for schools (B− to Turtle Creek’s D) and lower for cost of living (C+ to A).
| Town | PA rank | Overall | Cost | Safety | Schools | Health |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Turtle Creek | #750 | C+ | A | A− | D | D |
| Monroeville | #636 | B | C+ | C | B− | A− |
| Wilkins Township | #850 | C | B− | — | D | C+ |
| West Wilmerding | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| North Versailles Township | #791 | C+ | B+ | B− | C− | C− |
| Wilmerding | — | — | A | — | C− | D |
| East Pittsburgh | — | — | B+ | — | D | D |
Wilmerding and East Pittsburgh have fewer than 2,500 residents, so they get subject grades but no overall grade. Wilkins Township, Wilmerding and East Pittsburgh report no FBI crime data of their own. West Wilmerding isn’t graded (fewer than 1,000 residents, or not enough data). Compare Turtle Creek with a neighbor →
Short answers, built from the data on this page.
Turtle Creek grades C+ overall, better than 44% of U.S. towns and #750 of 1032 in Pennsylvania. It grades D for health, A− for safety and D for schools. Health is its weak spot, with a D.
Not for the area. Cost of living, which also weighs rents, property taxes and how many households pay 30% or more of their income for housing, grades A.
7 notable people were born here, including Ron Harper and Clarence Dietz.
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