A new ranking of the best places to start a family in the U.S. placed two Michigan cities far from the top.
WalletHub, a personal finance company, compared 182 cities across the country to determine which come out on top when starting a family. The study looked at 150 of the most populated cities in the U.S. as well as two of the most populated cities in each state.
Factors like family fun, health and safety, education and childcare, affordability and socio-economics were used to determine the rankings.
Overall, Grand Rapids, Michigan, ranked at 100 on the list while Detroit came in at 181 out of 182.
How did Michigan cities score?
The analysis ranks cities based on the most important factors for raising a family. Each city was given a separate ranking for each category:
Grand Rapids
- Family fun rank: 162
- Health and safety rank: 103
- Education and child care rank: 139
- Affordability rank: 44
- Socio-economic rank: 112
Detroit
- Family fun rank: 49
- Health and safety rank: 173
- Education and child care rank: 180
- Affordability rank: 156
- Socio-economic rank: 182
Overall, Grand Rapids ranked higher in affordability and lower in family fun, while Detroit ranked higher in family fun, but lower for socio-economics.
The analysis also included rankings for individual categories like number of playgrounds per capita, but Detroit in particular did not fare well.
Michigan’s largest city was ranked last in two categories: median family income (adjusted for inflation) as well as for highest percentage of families living below the poverty line. It was also second-highest among the cities for divorce rates.
Top five cities across the county to start a family
Fremont, California, took the top spot in the WalletHub rankings. The city’s median family income, good schools and ample outdoor space pushed it to the front of the pack.
Other top spots were snagged by cities in Kansas, Texas and Vermont. Here are WalletHub’s top five cities across the country to start a family:
- Fremont, CA
- Overland Park, KS
- Plano, TX
- Irvine, CA
- South Burlington, VT
How the rankings were decided
The five key factors–family fun, health and safety, education and childcare, affordability and socio-economics–were broken down using 45 metrics which were then weighed based on how important they were to families.
For example, in the education and childcare category, WalletHub used data on school quality, high school graduation rates, day care services per capita, the number of summer learning camps and other factors.
The data come from a range of sources. Some of the metrics come from the U.S. Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics, while other information was gleaned from user-generated content from companies like Yelp and TripAdvisor.
For a full breakdown of the process used to create the rankings, visit WalletHub’s methodology section.
Follow Metro Parent on Instagram.
