With 30 percent of Americans who moved last year citing “family reasons” as their motivation, the personal-finance website WalletHub recently released its report on the “Best & Worst Places to Raise a Family in 2024.”
WalletHub compared more than 180 cities across 45 key metrics. The data set ranges from housing affordability to school-system quality to the unemployment rate.
The best locations were determined to be Fremont, Calif., Overland Park, Kan., Irvine, Calif., Plano, Texas, Seattle, Gilbert, Ariz., San Jose, Calif., San Diego, Boise, Idaho and Huntington Beach, Calif.
The worst places to raise a family, according to the survey, were Augusta, Ga., Jackson, Miss., New Orleans, Birmingham, Ala., San Bernardino, Calif., Gulfport, Miss., Newark, N.J., Cleveland, Detroit and Memphis, Tenn.
Best versus worst takeaways from the survey included:
- New York has the most playgrounds (per square root of the population), which is 13.1 times more than in Hialeah, Fla., the city with the fewest.
- Irvine, Calif., has the fewest violent crimes (per 1,000 residents), which is 32.3 times fewer than in Memphis, Tenn., the city with the most.
- Columbia, Md., has the highest median family annual income (adjusted for cost of living), which is 3.3 times higher than in Detroit, the city with the lowest.
- Overland Park, Kan., has the lowest share of families receiving food stamps, which is 25.8 times lower than in Detroit, the city with the highest.
- Pearl City, Hawaii, has the lowest share of families living in poverty, which is 12.2 times lower than in Detroit, the city with the highest.