Pittsburgh vs. Cincinnati: Which Metro Scores Higher? (2026)

Pittsburgh's top ZIP code outscores Cincinnati's on NeighborScore's overall index, 66 to 54, and unlike some Rust Belt comparisons, the gap here is driven partly by a real safety difference: Pittsburgh's Allegheny County crime score of 45 out of 100 beats Cincinnati's Hamilton County baseline of 25 out of 100, according to the FBI Crime Data Explorer. Here's how these two river cities compare across crime, schools, and home value.

Pittsburgh's Best ZIP Codes

1. 15238, Fox Chapel area — crime 45, school 89, value 28, overall 66
2. 15228, Mt. Lebanon area — crime 45, school 88, value 35, overall 65

Pittsburgh's top-scoring suburbs benefit from a rare combination for a Rust Belt metro: a crime score above the 25/100 baseline common in many similarly sized cities, paired with school scores in the high 80s. 15238 and 15228 both draw families specifically for their school districts — Fox Chapel Area and Mt. Lebanon, respectively — which routinely rank among the strongest in Pennsylvania on state assessment data.

Both metros carry a reputation as affordable Rust Belt alternatives to pricier coastal cities, and both have seen renewed interest from remote workers and relocating families over the past several years. That backdrop makes a direct data comparison useful: headline reputations for "safe" or "affordable" cities don't always hold up ZIP code by ZIP code once actual FBI and NCES figures are compared.

Cincinnati's Best ZIP Codes

1. 45255, Anderson Township area — crime 25, school 86, value 36, overall 54
2. 45220, Clifton area — crime 25, school 77, value 37, overall 49

Cincinnati's top ZIP codes sit at Hamilton County's crime-score baseline of 25 out of 100, but they still post strong school data: 45255 comes within three points of Pittsburgh's top ZIP on schools, at 86 out of 100, and both Cincinnati ZIP codes post better value scores than either Pittsburgh ZIP code in this comparison. According to NCES assessment data, Forest Hills Local Schools, which serves much of 45255, consistently posts proficiency rates well above the Ohio state average.

The Crime Gap Is the Real Story Here

Unlike several other metro comparisons in this dataset, where identical county-level crime scores leave schools and value to do all the differentiating, Pittsburgh and Cincinnati genuinely diverge on safety. A 20-point gap on the crime component — 45 versus 25 — is large enough to move the overall score meaningfully even when school scores are close, since NeighborScore weights crime at 53% of the composite and schools at 47%, with value shown separately as affordability context rather than folded into the total.

That weighting means Cincinnati's better value scores can't fully offset Pittsburgh's crime advantage in the overall ranking, even though a buyer optimizing purely for affordability might reasonably prefer Cincinnati's numbers. The overall score reflects a specific formula, not a universal ranking of which city is objectively "better" for every buyer.

Which Metro Wins on Value?

Cincinnati's 45220 posts the best value score in this four-ZIP comparison at 37 out of 100, narrowly ahead of 45255's 36. Both Cincinnati ZIP codes beat Pittsburgh's best value score of 35 in 15228, reinforcing Cincinnati's reputation as the more affordable of the two metros. For buyers prioritizing price over the crime-score gap, Cincinnati's Clifton and Anderson Township areas currently offer the stronger combination of affordability and still-solid schools. Neither city's top ZIP codes are dramatically overpriced relative to their state medians, unlike some coastal markets in this dataset, which is itself part of both cities' appeal to relocating buyers.

How Each Metro Handles Growth and Change

Pittsburgh's population has declined gradually over recent decades even as its remaining core strengthens around healthcare, education, and robotics research anchored by its universities. Cincinnati, by contrast, has posted modest population growth region-wide, driven partly by logistics and distribution-sector job growth tied to its central location along major interstate corridors. Neither trend shows up directly in NeighborScore's crime, school, or value scores, but both help explain why each metro's top ZIP codes have held their relative rankings over multiple years of data rather than swinging sharply from one year to the next.

Bottom Line

Pittsburgh's ZIP 15238 leads this comparison overall at 66/100, driven by a meaningful crime-score advantage over Cincinnati's ZIP 45255 at 54/100 — not by a decisive edge in schools, where the two cities are much closer. Cincinnati wins clearly on value across both ZIP codes compared. Buyers should weigh the 20-point crime gap directly against the value difference rather than assuming one city is the obvious choice. Full crime, school, and value data for each ZIP code is available on their NeighborScore profiles, and more city-to-city comparisons are posted on the NeighborScore blog.

For a closer look at Cincinnati alone, see NeighborScore's ranking of Cincinnati's safest ZIP codes.