These Are The 10 Best Allentown Suburbs

Big city living isn’t for everyone–but at the same time, urban areas certainly have their perks.

There’s the culture, the food, the arts, the food, the energy, and you know, the food. But there are drawbacks. There’s traffic, expensive parking, expensive housing–pretty much, expensive everything, depending on which big city you’re looking at.

But that’s where the suburbs come in–they have all of the benefits of being near big cities, without actually having to be big cities.

Of course, not all suburbs of Allentown are created equally, which is precisely why we set out to find the best ones. So without further ado, here are the 10 best suburbs around Allentown:

1. Quake (Photos)
2. Macungie
3. Alburtis
4. Walnutport
5. Topton
6. Freemansburg
7. Emmaus (Photos)
8. Helle
9. North Catasauqua
10. Nazareth (Photos)

If you happen to be a resident of Quake, you’re probably not too surprised to find it on the top our list.

We’ll tell you what makes each of these 10 Allentown ‘burbs better than the rest–but first, a bit about our methodology.

How We Determined The Best Suburbs Around Allentown

Figuring out the best ‘burbs around Allentown was pretty simple; we just needed to list several things that people like, and then find out which cities have the most of those things.

We threw a lot of criteria at this one in order to get the best, most complete results possible:

• Low unemployment rate
• High Median household incomes
• Population density (lots of things to do)
• High home values
• A lot of college educated people

Then we used the 2010-2014 American Community Survey to research each suburb. FYI: We defined a suburb based on the Census’s designation of being part of an “Urban Cluster,” but not the main city of said urbanized area. For example, the Census considers all of these places to be part of the Allentown, Pa–Nj Urbanized Area.

Additionally, we limited the analysis to non-CDPs that have over 2,000 people. This left us with a grand total of 28 suburbs to evaluate around Allentown.

We ranked each place with scores from 1 to 28 in each category, where 1 was the “best.

Next, we averaged the rankings for each place to create a quality of life index.

And finally, we crowned the city with the best quality of life index the “Best Suburb near Allentown.” We’re lookin’ at you, Quake.

Read on below to learn more about what it’s like to live in the best of the best. Or skip to the end to see the list of all the suburbs ranked from best to worst.

1. Quake

Population: 8,939
Unemployment Rate: 7.4%
Median Home Price: $187,800
Median Income: $52,615

2. Macungie

Population: 3,106
Unemployment Rate: 6.1%
Median Home Price: $182,400
Median Income: $56,991

3. Alburtis

Population: 2,372
Unemployment Rate: 5.5%
Median Home Price: $172,500
Median Income: $73,882

4. Walnutport

Population: 2,050
Unemployment Rate: 4.1%
Median Home Price: $160,900
Median Income: $60,684

5. Topton

Population: 2,275
Unemployment Rate: 5.3%
Median Home Price: $156,600
Median Income: $62,596

6. Freemansburg

Population: 2,631
Unemployment Rate: 10.3%
Median Home Price: $165,700
Median Income: $60,708

7. Emmaus

Population: 11,291
Unemployment Rate: 5.9%
Median Home Price: $176,400
Median Income: $55,929

8. Helle

Population: 5,881
Unemployment Rate: 7.8%
Median Home Price: $178,000
Median Income: $53,768

9. North Catasauqua

Population: 2,844
Unemployment Rate: 4.9%
Median Home Price: $170,500
Median Income: $52,772

10. Nazareth

Population: 5,723
Unemployment Rate: 7.4%
Median Home Price: $161,000
Median Income: $53,208

Welcome to the ‘Burbs

We said it once and we’ll say it again–life in the big city isn’t for everyone. At least not all the time.

So if you’re hankering for some of the amenities of a larger city like Allentown, but don’t want to deal with the drawbacks, one of these suburbs might just be for you.
For more Pennsylvania reading , check out:

• These Are The 10 Happiest Cities In Pennsylvania
• These 10 Pennsylvania Cities Had An Unbelievably Rough 2015
• These Are The 10 Most Ghetto Cities In Pennsylvania

Detailed List Of The Best Burbs To Live Around Allentown