Having kids changes everything — your needs and ambitions, your priorities, and your ability to stay out past 9 p.m. The best place to live when you’re single in your 20s may not be so great once you hit 45 or 50, especially if you’re raising a family.
Luckily, you can always find a good place to settle down in California, no matter your stage of life. In fact, five California cities made a recent list of the top ten Best Places to Raise a Family in 2024.
The rankings were published by WalletHub. The credit website compared 182 U.S. cities, including the 150 most populous, in terms of 1) Family Fun 2) Health & Safety 3) Education & Child Care 4) Affordability and 5) Socioeconomics.
There were 45 relevant metrics, which were each graded on a 100-point scale. Among them were weather, crime rates, school quality, divorce rates, and costs-of-living.
These were the top 10 best cities for families, according to WalletHub:
Fremont, CA*
Overland Park, KS
Irvine, CA*
Plano, TX
Seattle, WA
Gilbert, AZ
San Jose, CA*
San Diego, CA*
Boise, ID
Huntington Beach, CA*
Only one California city landed on the “worst” list. San Bernardino came in at #177, tied with Gulfport, MS.
How did your city rank? See WalletHub’s list of the Best and Worst Cities for Families here.
List and data were published by WalletHub and do not reflect statistics on all cities.