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Cost of living, rent, and safety data — Population 118,796 • 0 community reports
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Common questions about living in Cambridge, MA
Cambridge's crime numbers hover right around the U.S. average. Violent crime index: 87. Property crime index: 64. The national baseline for both is 100, so you're looking at a city that's neither notably safe nor notably dangerous on paper. In practice, where you live within the city shifts the picture dramatically — a 10-minute drive can mean a completely different experience. Check local crime maps. Source: FBI UCR.
Most households manage fine. Median rent in Cambridge is $2,787/month, and the typical household pulls in $130,748/year — a 25.6% rent-to-income ratio. That's under the 30% threshold where housing costs start to pinch, though not by a huge margin. If you're a single earner or have significant debt payments, run your own numbers carefully. For dual-income households, the math works out comfortably. Census ACS 2023.
The average worker in Cambridge spends about 18 minutes getting to the office. Driving solo is the default (19.7%), with 30.8% working remotely and 18.0% on public transit. It's a fairly typical commute — not a selling point, not a dealbreaker.
Everything on this page is built from public government sources: rent and income figures from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey (ACS 5-Year Estimates, 2023); commute and transportation data from Census ACS tables B08303 and B08006; crime rates from the FBI Uniform Crime Report. We refresh each dataset monthly through an automated pipeline and cross-check for anomalies. No surveys, no user-submitted guesses — just official federal data presented in a way that's actually useful for people researching a move.
Disclaimer: Data reflects city-wide averages from public sources. Individual neighborhoods, schools, and conditions may differ. Always verify with local agencies before making major decisions.
These calculators pair well with the Cambridge, MA dashboard.
City scores blend federal baseline data with community reports from residents. The more reports a city has, the more the score reflects current conditions rather than historical averages.
The overall score is a weighted average of four categories:
Confidence tells you how reliable a score is based on report volume and recency:
CityScore = (BaselineWeight × BaselineScore) + (CrowdWeight × CommunityScore)
CrowdWeight grows from 0% to 50% as reports accumulate. Verified reports count double.