Living in Rochester, NY

Rochester's crime numbers hover right around the U.S. average. Violent crime index: 95. Property crime index: 79. 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 Rochester is $1,039/month, and the typical household pulls in $46,628/year — a 26.7% 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.

Most people in Rochester are at work within 17 minutes — a pretty reasonable commute by American standards. The breakdown: 65.8% drive alone, 5.4% take public transit, and 10.8% work from home. Rush hour adds time, obviously, but the baseline is manageable.

Barely. Rochester's overall climate risk score is 18/100 (lower is better), placing it among the least disaster-prone metros in the country. The main hazards on record — Winter Storm, Flood, Heat Wave — are all low-probability here. You still want renter's or homeowner's insurance, but extreme weather isn't going to be a regular part of your life. Based on FEMA and NOAA records.

The numbers suggest some caution. Rochester's graduation rate is 68.0% with a 13:1 student-teacher ratio — both below where most parents would feel comfortable. That said, there are standout public schools, active magnet programs, and charter options that families swear by. If education is a priority, you'll want to target specific schools and be willing to live in their attendance zones. Don't write off the whole city based on averages.

Good, overall. The median AQI sits at 38, which falls within the EPA's "Good" category, and Rochester logs 280 clean-air days annually. PM2.5 is the main pollutant. Occasional spikes happen — wildfire smoke, temperature inversions, or high-ozone days — but they're the exception, not the rule. Check AirNow.gov during allergy season or summer heat waves.

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; climate risk assessments using FEMA disaster declarations and NOAA storm records; air quality measurements from the EPA's Air Quality System database; school data from the National Center for Education Statistics. 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.