How to Choose the Best City for Your Family

Looking for the best city for your family? Don’t just follow the trends—find a place that fits your lifestyle, values, and future plans.

When you’re ready to buy a family home, you’ll need to choose a sufficient location first. You will want a neighborhood, city, and state that sufficiently meets your family’s needs in several categories.

How to Choose Where to Live as a Family

Not all areas are suitable for families—they may have low-quality healthcare or insufficient school systems that can severely impact your family’s happiness and safety. Choosing a good location doesn’t have to be overwhelming. You’ll want to consider the most important factors when narrowing down your options.

Cost of Living

When you consider a new city to live in, you’re likely looking at mortgage or rental prices above all else. You’ll need to factor in the entire cost of living to get a better idea of how much you can afford. For example, you may be able to scrape by in an expensive city based on housing payments alone—but what about groceries, home repairs, and transportation?

You can’t afford a place to live if you can’t get a job! The larger the city, the more career options are typically available, but you’ll have to pay higher city housing costs. Affordability will significantly impact your family’s health and happiness in a location.

Mortgage Options

Most families will need to finance the perfect home to live in, so you’ll want a wide variety of mortgage options to meet your family’s needs. Some areas have more homebuying programs and grants, such as first-time homebuyer programs, to make housing more accessible.

Other cities may have more lenders available to increase your options. Make sure the area you move to has a lot to choose from when it comes to lenders and mortgage types.

Safety Ratings

Crime happens in any city, and the larger the city, the higher the crime rate. However, some cities and neighborhoods have worse crime rates per capita than others.

You’ll want to compare crime rates to other locations, including the national average, to get a good idea of how safe an area is for your family to live in. Take a look at the data outside the numbers, too—what types of crimes are the most prevalent? How often do these crimes occur?

School Quality

Your children will need a decent education for a fulfilling life and future. The quality of public schools and colleges can play a major role in your child’s learning. You’ll want to study up on recent ratings of schools in the area you’re considering in terms of safety and grades.

Figure out what the best schools are in the area, and see if your child may be able to attend them. You can also consider a high-quality private school, but tuition can significantly add to your cost of living. No school system is perfect, but higher ratings can indicate a better chance for children to thrive.

Healthcare

The quality of a city’s healthcare system has a major impact on your family. Your kids will need frequent healthcare, even if just for checkups or vaccinations. You don’t want to be stuck with lengthy waiting periods, long drives to an emergency room, or doctors who aren’t invested in your or your family’s well-being.

The more you know about a city’s healthcare quality, the fewer unpleasant surprises you’ll encounter.

Family-Friendly Amenities

Having things to do in your city can improve your family’s satisfaction, education, and enrichment. If there are no amenities around, you’ll have to travel farther for them. Think about what your family likes to do and what they may enjoy in the future.

Public parks, dog clubs, restaurants, museums, and zoos are some of the many enjoyable amenities cities have to offer. Are there any must-have amenities, like a zoo, in your city of choosing? Are there comparable compromises?

Walkability

Cities often come with a large amount of traffic, and walking is usually preferable in these cases. When you have kids, you may also enjoy having a nice walk downtown for some enrichment and a bite to eat. A city’s walkability can make it more accessible and enjoyable.

If you have car trouble or you’d like a safe place for your kids to walk around, walkability is important! Consider the amount of sidewalks in your neighborhood and amenities you can walk to from home. Are there pedestrian-focused places? Can you easily take dogs for a walk?

Top 3 Cities for Families in the U.S.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the number of choices, don’t worry—we’ve narrowed it down for you. These three cities consistently rank high for safety, education, healthcare, and overall quality of life. Each one offers a unique mix of family-friendly amenities and opportunities that make them stand out as some of the best cities for your family.

Boston, Massachusetts

Massachusetts boasts some of the most well-educated populations in America thanks to its famous college institutions. Boston is a large city with a rich economy, walkability, excellent healthcare, and schools for your family.

Many mortgages and homebuying programs offer down payment assistance, lower interest rates, and general help with affordability, making it flexible and attractive for families of all financial backgrounds.

Phoenix, Arizona

Phoenix, Arizona’s most populated city, is a great choice when it comes to economy, healthcare, and mortgage availability.

There is also a wide variety of mortgage types and lenders from which to choose.

Raleigh, North Carolina

If you prefer to hang your hat in The South, Raleigh is one of the many excellent choices for families. It boasts a crime rate lower than the national average, great schooling, diverse populations, a decent economy, and top-notch healthcare.

Homebuying programs include zero-interest down payment assistance, first-time homebuying grants, and more.

Choosing a City for Your Home: What to Consider

There are many considerations families should think about when choosing an area to live in. All families are different—walkability may not be a major dealbreaker for you, but other families may pass up on cities that aren’t pedestrian-friendly.

Other factors aren’t as flexible; you’ll want a safe, affordable city with good schools and healthcare systems. If you’re still stuck making a choice, add up all of the pros and cons of the particular area and compare them to others. Research and compromise are the keys to making a great decision for your family’s home.