Living in Eugene, OR

Crime in Eugene runs a bit below the national average. The violent crime index is 77 (100 is the U.S. baseline), with property crime at 178. That puts it in a decent spot — not the safest metro in the country, but meaningfully better than the midpoint. Neighborhood choice still matters, especially if you have kids or walk home late. FBI Uniform Crime Report data.

Most households manage fine. Median rent in Eugene is $1,347/month, and the typical household pulls in $63,836/year — a 25.3% 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 Eugene are at work within 16 minutes — a pretty reasonable commute by American standards. The breakdown: 63.0% drive alone, 2.7% take public transit, and 15.3% work from home. Rush hour adds time, obviously, but the baseline is manageable.

Not particularly. The climate risk score is 25/100, which puts Eugene in the low-risk tier. Wildfire, Earthquake, and Flood are the most relevant hazards, but none of them are frequent concerns. Standard insurance should have you covered. It's one less thing to worry about if you're comparing this city to higher-risk metros along the coast or in tornado alley. Data from FEMA disaster declarations and NOAA.

Good, overall. The median AQI sits at 40, which falls within the EPA's "Good" category, and Eugene logs 270 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. 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.