Kids & Family

Woodridge Ranked Among Best Illinois Cities for Families

WalletHub has released its 2016 list of best and worst cities in Illinois for families.

Woodridge is a great place to live for plenty of reasons, and now you can keep your humble bragging current with the latest ranking of best and worst Illinois cities for families from WalletHub.

Woodridge comes in as the No. 40 overall best city for families in the state.

Of the 162 cities included in the study, Woodridge ranked No. 83 for family life and fun. It earned 46th place for affordability, 30th place for education, health and safety and 36th place for socioeconomic environment.

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Several other towns throughout the Chicago suburbs were highly ranked for family raising, the study reports.

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Top Chicago suburbs on the list include Deerfield (No. 2), Libertyville (No. 4), Hinsdale (No. 6), Cary (No. 7), Lake in the Hills (No. 8), Frankfort (No. 9) and Naperville (No 10).

But several of the top 10 worst towns in Illinois are also located in the Chicago suburbs.

Among the worst suburbs for families on WalletHub’s list were Harvey, Dolton, Maywood and Blue Island.

WalletHub ranked Morton, a village of about 15,000 residents located southeast of Peoria, as the best town in Illinois for families. East St. Louis, located on the Mississippi River just east of St. Louis, was named the worst town in Illinois for families.

To create the ranking, WalletHub’s analysts compared 162 cities in the state using 21 indicators of “ideal family conditions.” Some of those conditions included percentage of families with young children, median family income, housing affordability, quality of the school systems, number of parks and attractions and a separation and divorce rates. The full methodology can be found here.

Below is a list of the 40 best and worst cities from the study.

Best Cities in Illinois for Families

  1. Deerfield
  2. Washington
  3. Morton
  4. Libertyville
  5. O’Fallon
  6. Hinsdale
  7. Cary
  8. Lake in the Hills
  9. Frankfort
  10. Naperville
  11. Yorkville
  12. Edwardsville
  13. Elmhurst
  14. Oswego
  15. Lake Zurich
  16. Batavia
  17. Lake Forest
  18. Glen Ellyn
  19. Normal
  20. Grayslake
  21. La Grange
  22. Algonquin
  23. Bartlett
  24. Shorewood
  25. Montgomery
  26. Wilmette
  27. Vernon Hills
  28. St. Charles
  29. New Lenox
  30. Wheaton
  31. Buffalo Grove
  32. Crystal Lake
  33. Plainfield
  34. Northbrook
  35. South Elgin
  36. Glenview
  37. Geneva
  38. Bloomington
  39. Lockport
  40. Woodridge

Worst Cities in Illinois for Families

  1. East St. Louis
  2. Harvey
  3. Dolton
  4. Maywood
  5. Blue Island
  6. Bridgeview
  7. Calumet City
  8. Kankakee
  9. Chicago
  10. Country Club Hills
  11. Chicago Heights
  12. North Chicago
  13. Lansing
  14. Rockford
  15. Danville
  16. Bellwood
  17. Bensenville
  18. Cicero
  19. Alton
  20. Carbondale
  21. Franklin Park
  22. Waukegan
  23. Melrose Park
  24. Granite City
  25. Berwyn
  26. South Holland
  27. Niles
  28. Mount Vernon
  29. Park Forest
  30. Zion
  31. Elmwood Park
  32. Alsip
  33. Crest Hill
  34. Matteson
  35. Skokie
  36. Addison
  37. Decatur
  38. Palos Hills
  39. DeKalb
  40. Oak Lawn

The full list can be found here.

Amie Schaenzer contributed to this article.
Photo via Yelp.

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