Cost of Living
per year
per month
How North Highlands's prices compare to the US city average across major spending categories.
How far does your salary go in North Highlands?
Your $100,000 in North Highlands has the same purchasing power as $85,056 in the average US city. You'd need $14,944 more here to maintain that standard of living.
Demographics and workforce data from the US Census ACS 5-Year.
bachelor's or higher
Climate, safety, and walkability indicators.
See a side-by-side breakdown of cost of living, housing, and salaries.
Popular comparisons
Sorted by affordability — most affordable first.
Within 10 points of North Highlands's cost index of 118, sorted by closest match.
Why do people move to North Highlands? On the data, the answer is largely on the calmer side of the national distribution. The detail is below.
Reported crime in North Highlands comes in around 1,943 per 100,000 — under the national baseline of about 3,500. Worth digging into specific neighborhoods before settling on one, but the city-level picture is on the safer side.
Reasons are pulled from North Highlands's actual data — Census ACS, BLS, BEA, NOAA, EPA AQS, FBI, and Walk Score. We don't list positives that aren't supported by the numbers, which is why different cities show different sections.
Not really a snow town. With winters averaging 40°F, North Highlands sits in the mild-cold band where snowflakes appear occasionally and everything melts within a day. Most years see one storm worth talking about.
Cool, not cold. Winters in North Highlands sit around 40°F — sweater-and-jacket weather most days, with the occasional cold front that reminds you it's still winter.
Properly hot. North Highlands's summer averages around 91°F with daily highs that routinely break 100°F. The trick to summer here is starting the day at sunrise and staying inside through the worst of it.
Zone 9, give or take a half-zone. North Highlands's typical winter low puts it in that band on the USDA Hardiness map, which is what nurseries label plants against. Use Zone 9 as your starting filter; the USDA's interactive map is more precise for borderline cases.
Around 112 feet (34 m) above sea level — flat enough that nothing about North Highlands's altitude shows up in daily life.
The headline number is reassuring. North Highlands's reported incident rate of about 1,943 per 100,000 is comfortably below the US norm of around 3,500 per 100k. Specific neighborhoods always vary, but the broader picture is on the safer side.
More expensive than average — by enough to plan around. North Highlands's composite index is 118 versus 100 for the US, with rent and home prices driving most of the gap. Salaries in higher-paying industries usually move together, but the math still tightens for everyone else.
North Highlands scores 36 out of 100 on Walk Score, which translates to "car-dependent but not aggressively so". Transit Score is 30 out of 100. Some neighborhoods buck the citywide average; the dense inner cores are usually noticeably more walkable than the city number suggests.
As a rule of thumb, plan on about $82,299 to live in North Highlands the way a $70,000 earner lives in a typical US city. The math gets less forgiving the lower you go below that. Median rent in North Highlands runs about $1,431/mo — keeping housing under 30% of gross income points to a similar floor on what you'd want to earn.