The Midwest stands out in recent rankings analysis by neighborhood and real estate resource startup HomeArea

It is no surprise that the Midwest is home to a more relaxed, down to earth and affordable style of life. However, according to new research, the Midwest has a lot more going for it than just these unique qualities. A recent rankings analysis by HomeArea, a neighborhood and real estate resource for consumers and researchers, discovered a number of reasons why the Midwest stands out when compared with the rest of the country.  For starters, the results showed that Youngstown, OH was the cheapest city in the entire country in terms of housing costs. Moreover, the city’s median monthly housing cost is worth $521 in 2018, compared to a national median cost of $1,048. In addition to this the Midwest was also home to the top 3 cities that are better to buy than rent which consisted of Youngstown, OH in third place, Detroit, MI in second and Flint, MI  in first place. Ann Arbor, MI also came in the top three of cities with the highest percent of post-grads with an impressive 46% with a postgraduate degree. What’s more, Fishers, IN received the top position of the lowest poverty cities  with an impressive poverty rate of 0.9% “Poverty can bring with it many problems: crime, poor housing conditions, low education, and more. In the US, the poverty status is determined at the family level. If the family income is below a threshold, the entire family is considered to be in poverty. The threshold is set by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and varies depending on family size, composition, and age,” states their website. “The national poverty rate from the latest estimates is 13.4% and has fallen 4.6% from 14.0%.” HomeArea have developed extensive reports for over 29,000 United States cities that contain Census data dating all the way back to 1790. Users can find and compare home housing data such as home values and rent prices, an area’s demographic breakdown, income and employment statistics and education details of any location in the United States. They have also developed various research projects and tools such as their state and city rankings (which the stats above are from), their 3D population density maps and much more. To find out more on these cities, and many more across the US you can visit their website and explore their data-rich charts and graphs.

Disclosure: This article includes a client of an Espacio portfolio company