Cayey's housing stock spans the town's historic core and its rural mountain barrios, with older Spanish-colonial and mid-century homes in the urban center and single-family houses and hillside properties across the outlying communities. The mountainous terrain produces winding roads, hillside lots, and scenic views, while the town's role as a university and commercial center supports a mix of established neighborhoods and newer construction. The market is more affordable and less dense than the San Juan metro, with homes tied closely to the region's steep, green topography.

Cayey is organized around its historic downtown and the barrios that climb into the surrounding mountains, with Guavate among the best known for its weekend lechonera strip. The town center holds the plaza, church, and commercial core typical of a Puerto Rican municipality, while residential neighborhoods and rural communities spread outward along winding mountain roads. This layout—a compact urban center ringed by steep, forested barrios—reflects Cayey's dual identity as a college town and a gateway to the Cordillera Central.

Life in Cayey is shaped by its mountain setting and its food and university culture. The cooler, misty climate sets it apart from the coast, and residents live among steep green hills, rivers, and forest. The University of Puerto Rico at Cayey brings students and academic life to town, while Guavate's lechoneras draw crowds from across the island on weekends for roast pork, music, and celebration. It is a relaxed, community-centered pace, with the larger cities of Caguas and San Juan reachable along the island's central road corridors.

Cayey's educational landscape is anchored by the University of Puerto Rico at Cayey, a public liberal-arts campus of the UPR system that enrolls roughly 2,200 students on a 145-acre campus. The university is a defining institution for the town, drawing students and faculty from across the island and feeding into Puerto Rico's graduate and medical programs. The municipality's primary and secondary students attend Puerto Rico's public school system and area private schools, but UPR Cayey gives the town an outsized role in the island's higher education.

Cayey sits on Puerto Rico's central mountain corridor, with expressways and highways linking it to San Juan and Caguas to the north and Ponce to the south along the route of the old Spanish military road. The town is automobile-oriented, and its mountain roads are scenic but winding, with travel times shaped by the terrain. This central position makes Cayey a practical hub for reaching both coasts of the island, while its highland roads provide some of Puerto Rico's most striking drives through the Cordillera Central.

Cayey's recreation is rooted in its mountains and its food culture. The Carite Forest, a protected mountain reserve, offers hiking, waterfalls, and cloud-forest scenery, while Charco Azul and the area's rivers provide swimming holes. The district of Guavate is a destination in itself, its "Ruta de Lechón" serving roast pork, live music, and Puerto Rican cuisine along a winding mountain strip. Scenic overlooks throughout the Sierra de Cayey and Sierra de Jájome complete a recreation scene built on the island's highland landscape.