Granite and grey harl still dominate the streetscape here, broken up by the newer glass fronts near the business parks that the oil and gas years built. It's a working city rather than a postcard one — the money shows up in solid Victorian terraces and steady suburbs rather than anything flashy, and you'll notice a working-age crowd rather than students or retirees dominating the pavements. The numbers back up that middle-of-the-road, comfortable-but-not-flush character: Aberdeen sits in the seventh decile for both deprivation and income, meaning it's less deprived than most of Scotland without being among the wealthiest council areas either. House prices have actually softened rather than climbed — down over the past year — and that trend is read here as worsening rather than a one-off blip, even as affordability itself has stayed stable. A council tax band D bill running a little above the Scotland-wide median fits a city that's comfortable but has clearly come off its boom-time peak. Among the 62 schools serving the city, families cluster around local authority primaries like Westpark, Muirfield and Fernielea, with Orchard Brae providing specialist provision — a fairly typical spread for a council of this size, though Scotland's system doesn't grade these schools the way you'd see further south, so you're relying more on word of mouth and open days than league tables. What stands out most, oddly, is the safety picture: Aberdeen carries a top-tier grade for safety, well ahead of what you'd expect given everything else sits in solid-but-unremarkable territory — B for connectivity, C for housing, B+ for nightlife. That safety grade is the outlier worth noting, the one area where this city punches clearly above its own average, and the trend is holding flat rather than drifting either way. Connectivity is helped along by strong full-fibre coverage, so working from home or streaming through the long north-east evenings isn't a problem. Green space and public transport figures aren't captured in what's on record here, so it's best not to assume anything about parks or bus routes from this alone — worth checking on the ground rather than guessing. Median age sits a few years younger than the Scotland-wide figure, which tracks with a city that's long drawn workers rather than retirees, even as the energy sector that built it has become less of a one-way bet. Population density is lower than the national average despite Aberdeen being a proper city, which hints at how much space the granite suburbs actually take up compared with tighter urban cores elsewhere. Put together, this reads as a city for people who want steady work, a genuine sense of safety, and housing that isn't currently under upward pressure — with the trade-off being a housing market that's cooling rather than one you'd bank on for future gains, and a data picture that, on green space and transport at least, leaves some blanks for you to fill in yourself before committing.