It is bounded by Interstate 95 to the southwest, west, and north and the Hutchinson River Parkway to the east and southeast, and is partially in the Baychester and Eastchester neighborhoods.

Spread throughout the community are six nursery schools and day care centers, four basketball courts, and five baseball diamonds.

The adjacent Bay Plaza Shopping Center has a 13-screen multiplex movie theater, department stores, and a supermarket.

[8] Other streets include: In the 1920s the land that would become Co-op City had been set aside, intended for a future municipal airport.

[16][17] In February 1965, plans were announced for the residential Co-op City development, the world's largest housing cooperative, on the site.

[20] While much of the Freedomland site and some of the surrounding land was infilled, several existing houses were retained along Givans Creek (near Section 5 of Co-op City) because of opposition from residents there.

The project was sponsored and built by the United Housing Foundation, an organization established in 1951 by Abraham Kazan and the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America, and was designed by cooperative architect Herman J. Jessor.

However, cooperators stayed united and held out for 13 months (the longest and largest strike of its kind in United States history) before a compromise was finally reached, with mediation from then-Bronx Borough President Robert Abrams and then-New York Secretary of State Mario Cuomo.

[25] In 2004, Co-op City was financially unable to continue payments to HFA due to the huge costs of emergency repairs.

This led to the agreement that Co-op City would remain in the Mitchell-Lama Housing Program for at least seven more years as a concession on the arrears and that any rehabilitation that Co-op City took on to improve the original poor construction (which happened under New York State's watch) would earn credit toward eliminating the debt.

Within the first decade of the 2000s, the aging development began undergoing a complex-wide $240 million renovation, replacing piping and garbage compactors, rehabilitating garages and roofs, upgrading the power plant, making facade and terrace repairs, switching to energy-efficient lighting and water-conserving technologies, replacing all 130,000 windows and 4,000 terrace doors (costing $57.9 million in material and labor) and all 179 elevators.

In the end, a compromise had the state supplying money and RiverBay refinancing the mortgage, borrowing $480 million from New York Community Bank in 2004, to cover the rest of the capital costs.

Also, whatever excess power generated after satisfying the community's needs will be sold back to the electrical grid, adding another source of income for RiverBay.

In September 2007, a report by the New York Inspector General, Kristine Hamann, charged that the Division of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR), which is responsible for overseeing Mitchell-Lama developments, was negligent in its duties to supervise the contracting, financial reporting, budgeting and the enforcement of regulations in Co-op City (and other M-L participants) during the period of January 2003 to October 2006.

[28] In October 2007, a former board president, Iris Herskowitz Baez, and a former painting contractor, Nickhoulas Vitale, pleaded guilty to involvement in a kickback scheme.

[30] During January 2015, an outbreak of Legionnaires' disease sickened 8 people near Co-op City's cooling towers.

In 2008, trained supervisors were granted the power to write summonses for parking and noise violations[citation needed] and Segways were acquired – along with bikes – to help the officers patrol during the warmer months.

[39] Based on data from the 2010 United States Census, the population of Co-Op City was 43,752, an increase of 3,076 (7.6%) from the 40,676 counted in 2000.

[40] The entirety of Community District 10, which comprises City Island, Co-op City, Country Club, Pelham Bay, Schuylerville, Throgs Neck and Westchester Square, had 121,868 inhabitants as of NYC Health's 2018 Community Health Profile, with an average life expectancy of 81.1 years.

[44] In 2018, an estimated 14% of Community District 10 residents lived in poverty, compared to 25% in all of the Bronx and 20% in all of New York City.

Based on this calculation, as of 2018[update], Community District 10 is considered high-income relative to the rest of the city and not gentrifying.

[41]: 7 Because of its large senior citizen block—well over 8,300 residents above the age of sixty as of 2007[45]—it is considered the largest naturally occurring retirement community (NORC) in the nation and its Senior Services Program has extensive outreach to help its aging residents, most of whom moved in as workers and remained after retiring.

[47] In the 1990s, after the fall of the Soviet Union, the neighborhood received an influx of former Eastern Bloc émigrés, especially from Russia and Albania.

In 2018, this population of uninsured residents was estimated to be 7%, lower than the citywide rate of 14%, though this was based on a small sample size.

[41]: 14 The concentration of fine particulate matter, the deadliest type of air pollutant, in Community District 10 is 0.0075 milligrams per cubic metre (7.5×10−9 oz/cu ft), the same as the city average.

[62] The majority of Co-op City was built atop Rattlesnake Creek, a small stream that emptied into the Hutchinson River to the east.

[68] Community District 10 generally has a lower rate of college-educated residents than the rest of the city as of 2018[update].

[41]: 6  The percentage of Community District 10 students excelling in math rose from 29% in 2000 to 47% in 2011, and reading achievement increased from 33% to 35% during the same time period.

[69] Community District 10's rate of elementary school student absenteeism is slightly higher than the rest of New York City.

[42]: 24 (PDF p. 55) [41]: 6  Additionally, 75% of high school students in Community District 10 graduate on time, the same as the citywide average of 75%.