What’s the Best Place to Raise a Family? We Scored Every County

Where in the United States do children have the strongest foundation for a healthy, stable start in life? A recent Washington Post analysis takes on that question directly, rating every county in the country on how well it supports families. Instead of relying on reputation, politics or marketing, the project compares communities using hard data-spanning school performance, housing costs, economic mobility and public safety. The findings unsettle many common assumptions about “great places to raise kids,” exposing deep inequalities not just across regions but between adjacent counties separated only by a highway or a river.

A new map of childhood: how our county scorecard exposes hidden gaps for families

Our national county scorecard places every U.S. county under the same microscope, stripping away branding and partisan talking points. By assembling a composite index that blends education quality, housing stability, health and safety, and economic mobility, the analysis shows how dramatically a child’s day-to-day reality can shift with a change of ZIP code-even within the same metro area.

Drive 15 minutes across some urban and suburban boundaries, and the contrasts are stark: one county may offer updated school buildings, after-school programs and nearby pediatric specialists, while the next struggles with aging facilities, limited childcare options and long drives to the nearest hospital. These aren’t abstract differences; the disparities appear as steep breaks in the data, underscoring that “opportunity” in America is less a uniform promise and more a fragmented patchwork.

Across the country, broad types of communities face distinct trade-offs:

• Suburban enclaves frequently deliver top-tier public schools and plentiful youth activities-but with housing prices and property taxes so high that many young or moderate-income families are locked out.
• Rural areas often offer strong social cohesion, lower crime and close-knit support networks, while contending with shortages of child care providers, limited broadband coverage and fewer pediatric specialists.
• Legacy industrial counties still grappling with deindustrialization tend to see higher child poverty rates, elevated asthma and other health issues tied to pollution, and fewer well-paying jobs for parents.
• High-growth Sunbelt and exurban regions may enjoy booming job markets and new housing construction but fall behind on infrastructure, from overcrowded classrooms to strained maternity wards and understaffed emergency rooms.

The building blocks of a good childhood: key factors from classrooms to housing costs

To better understand what shapes childhood across more than 3,000 U.S. counties, the analysis zeroes in on a cluster of indicators that go beyond glossy community rankings. Education sits at the center, but the lens is wider than test scores: the data track student-teacher ratios, chronic absenteeism, availability of early childhood programs, access to advanced coursework and the presence of school counselors and support staff. Research from organizations like the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute has consistently linked these elements to long-term earnings, health and civic engagement.

Safety, too, emerges as a critical but often under-discussed dimension. Measures such as youth victimization rates, traffic injuries near schools and gun-related incidents involving children and teens help capture whether parents feel comfortable letting kids bike to school, walk to a friend’s house or play in a local park. While national violent crime rates among youth have declined from their peaks in the 1990s, firearm injuries have become a leading cause of death for American children and teens in recent years, underscoring why these metrics matter.

Here are some of the core elements behind the rankings:

• School quality: classroom size, access to early learning, breadth of courses (including STEM and arts), and support services.
• Safety: levels of violent and property crime, youth-involved traffic incidents, and rates of gun-related harm.
• Housing costs: how much of a family’s income is consumed by rent or a mortgage, plus indicators of eviction and foreclosure risk.
• Stability: residential turnover and how long families typically remain in the same neighborhood or school zone.

Housing, in particular, functions as both a basic necessity and a fault line in the data. The scorecard looks at cost burden-the percentage of income families spend on housing-alongside overcrowding and the frequency of forced or unplanned moves. Nationally, federal guidelines consider housing unaffordable when it exceeds 30% of household income; Census data show that nearly half of renter households with children spend more than that threshold.

Counties where most families keep housing costs below that 30% line tend to show fewer mid-year school transfers, lower eviction rates and more neighborhood continuity. Those factors, in turn, are closely associated with stronger academic performance and better mental health outcomes for kids. The analysis highlights a consistent pattern: communities that combine reliable public schools, low exposure to violence and sustainable housing costs often deliver better results for children than wealthier but volatile areas where families are stretched thin and constantly on the move.

In other words, the numbers don’t just rank counties; they illuminate the often-invisible infrastructure-stable schools, safe streets and realistic rents-that makes childhood routines predictable and secure.

Unexpected standouts: how overlooked counties beat famous suburbs for families

One of the most revealing findings is the emergence of a quiet tier of high-performing counties with almost no national profile. These places routinely outscore well-known “best suburbs” that dominate real estate lists and social media.

What sets them apart? Analysts point to a mix of manageable housing costs, shorter average commutes and dense civic engagement that big-name communities often struggle to replicate. In counties where principals and superintendents still recognize parents at drop-off, local leaders show up to PTA meetings, and debates over playground upgrades fill town halls, families gain access to tangible support that doesn’t show up in glossy marketing.

These communities are also adept at using their scale to their advantage. Instead of chasing high-end amenities, they prioritize dependable fundamentals: safe drinking water, consistent broadband, predictable policing and modest but reliable support for working parents. In many cases, federal and state grants are directed toward essentials like safe routes to school, upgraded libraries, renovated parks and expanded early-childhood slots.

High-performing but lesser-known counties in the data tend to share patterns like:

• Lower housing burdens that leave room in the budget for child care, extracurriculars, summer camps and savings.
• Stable school funding that keeps class sizes reasonable and preserves arts, music and special education without pushing property taxes to extremes.
• Local employers offering somewhat flexible scheduling, remote or hybrid options, and family-friendly leave policies that align with school and childcare hours.
• Community anchors-including libraries, recreation centers, youth sports leagues and faith communities-that provide informal safety nets and enrichment.

These fictional examples echo real places scattered across the Midwest, Mountain West, New England and beyond, where modest tax bases support solid public schools, and families trade trendy amenities for predictable routines and deep local ties.

Turning rankings into decisions: how parents can use the data for their next move

For parents contemplating a move, the county rankings are most useful as a research tool, not a final answer. They can help you narrow the map-but they cannot tell you, on their own, which place is right for your particular family.

A practical approach starts with scanning the higher-scoring counties in the regions you’re considering, then layering in your own nonnegotiables: commute time, type of housing, school preferences, child care options, access to extended family and even climate or transportation needs. Once you’ve identified potential counties, dig deeper using school district reports, public crime dashboards, state education departments, and health provider directories to understand pediatric and maternal care availability.

It’s especially important to compare the numbers with the lived experience of families who share your circumstances. Reach out to local parent Facebook groups, neighborhood forums and community organizations. Ask how inclusive schools and public spaces feel for families of color, LGBTQ+ households, immigrant families and those living on moderate or unpredictable incomes. These perspectives often reveal blind spots in the data, particularly around discrimination, bullying or under-resourced support services.

After narrowing your list, plan targeted visits and “stress test” each community:

• Drive the routes you’d actually use during rush hour-from home to work, from school to after-care, from home to the closest urgent care.
• Visit playgrounds, libraries, grocery stores and clinics at busy times to see who uses them and how well they function.
• Walk school-adjacent streets to observe crosswalks, sidewalks, lighting and traffic calming measures.
• Check community calendars for youth sports, cultural events, festivals and parent meetups.

As you compare communities, a simple checklist can help balance hard data with on-the-ground impressions:

To make the most of the rankings, consider these practical steps:

• Overlay the rankings with your budget: run side-by-side cost estimates for housing, childcare, healthcare, commuting and debt payments in each county.
• Test everyday logistics: use navigation apps to simulate real traffic at school drop-off and evening rush hour rather than relying on average times.
• Probe resilience: ask residents and local officials how the community handled recent crises-from major storms and wildfires to school closures and public health emergencies.
• Center your child’s specific needs: for children with disabilities, language needs or mental health challenges, the quality and availability of specialized services may outweigh any county’s overall score.

The Way Forward: building more places where children can thrive

Data can illuminate patterns, but it cannot fully capture the texture of everyday life. The county-by-county analysis offers a powerful, evidence-based map of opportunity for families, yet it inevitably misses the countless quiet decisions, support networks and sacrifices that shape a child’s upbringing.

Parents still shoulder trade-offs no metric can simplify: choosing between lower housing costs and stronger job markets, between proximity to grandparents and higher-ranked schools, between a slower pace and the promise of rapid career advancement. For some families, staying rooted in a familiar community-despite a middling county score-will outweigh the benefits of moving to a higher-ranked area.

What the project makes unmistakably clear, however, is that place matters-often decisively-in influencing children’s health, safety, educational prospects and long-term economic mobility. The unequal distribution of advantages across counties reflects decades of policy around housing, school funding, transportation, zoning, environmental regulation and public safety.

As local leaders and lawmakers consider decisions on affordable housing, early childhood programs, transit investments and neighborhood safety, the stakes are immediate and personal: they shape the futures of the families already living in these communities and those who may arrive next.

The analysis suggests that the “best place” to raise a family is not a single city or county, but a set of conditions-stable housing costs, safe streets, effective schools and robust community networks-that can be nurtured in many locations. The open question is whether the country is willing to invest in extending those conditions to far more places, ensuring that a good childhood is not a privilege tied to a few favored ZIP codes, but a realistic possibility for families in every corner of the United States.