The 10 Best Little Rock Suburbs To Live In For 2026

The 10 Best Little Rock Suburbs To Live For 2026

Maumelle is always mentioned as one of the best suburbs in the Little Rock area. We’ll tell you the good about “Awesome Maumelle.”

Everyone here is rich; families average $103,333 a year, which is the 2nd highest in the Little Rock region. And only 3.84% are out of work. Homes average more than $307,538 each.

Austin is the second best ‘burb we looked at near Little Rock for 2026.

It ranks 1st for incomes in the area and only 4.5% of residents lack insurance, good for 4th best.

Here in Bryant, it’s really safe, and residents are just about as rich as you’ll see in the Little Rock metro area.

The bad side? Schools are more crowded, and the cost of living puts a large part of the city out of reach for most families.

But price is based on demand and a lot of people want to live in Bryant.

Sherwood ranks as the 4th best suburb of Little Rock for 2026.

You won’t find many better places to raise your kids in the region than in Sherwood and the schools are some of the best around.

Coming in as the fifth best is Vilonia.

Vilonia gets kudos for having the 3rd most expensive homes in the Little Rock area, where houses sell for an average of $259,295. However, the cost of living here is among the highest in the area.

Haskell is proud of its 6th place finish on this list. And here’s why.

Most residents have great jobs and the unemployment rate sits at 0.76%.

According to online reports, Haskell is quickly becoming one of the more affluent suburbs in the Little Rock area, meaning you need to get in soon.

The 7th best suburb on our list goes to Cabot.

Cabot schools are some of the best in the region, and crime is really low. The cost of living makes it a lot more desirable for many families, especially first-time home buyers.

And, it’s only 25.7 miles to downtown, which is a good thing.

Review Of Cabot by HomeSnacks User

There is not a whole lot to do in Cabot. There are a ton of dollar stores and everything closes down before 6pm… Except for Wal-mart, McDonald’s, and Waffle House. There is pretty much no night life for anyone that is not creepy. I lived there for about 10 years and hated it. The only reason that it gets a 25 rating is because Cabot has quite a few really fun thrift shops and flea markets. Cabot is also not as bad as Ward and Beebe.

Favorites: Dolly’s Flea Market, Grinds Coffee Co., China Buffet, Morina’s, and various consignment shops and flea markets.

Watch out for: The Purple Onion, Waffle House, and creepy men.

Benton is growing quickly, and for a good reason. Crime is far below average, and most residents are gainfully employed. Even the cost of living is reasonable.

A solid 7.23% of people lack insurance, good for 11th in the area.

Review Of Benton by HomeSnacks User

High crime, nothing to do, bad schools, unsafe neighborhoods, high taxes, high rent prices, low home values, low wages, high gas prices. Friendly police force that tries very hard, they just can’t keep up with the city growing too fast.

The bowling ally used to be a great past time in Benton but sadly, it has been replaced by a fitness center. What was good is gone and what is bad is getting worse.

Is ‘Everything Better In Conway?’

Almost.

It placed 9th on our list thanks to the fact that it’s really expensive to live here, but the schools are great, so you get what you pay for in that regard.

And rounding out the top ten for 2026 is Shannon Hills.

This city is far above average in every category, and the best part? It’s far more affordable than the other cities listed above. So, you get a big bang for your buck here.

Methodology: How We Determined The Best Suburbs Around Little Rock for 2026

Figuring out the best suburbs around Little Rock was simple. We used Saturday Night Science to find things people like about living in the suburbs and then locate the suburbs with those things.

We analyzed the newest American Community Survey data for 2020-2024 to research each suburb. We decided upon the following criteria:

• Low unemployment rate
• High median household incomes
• Population density (lots of things to do)
• High home values
• A lot of college-educated people
• Low poverty
• High rate of insured families

We defined a suburb as being within 30 miles of Little Rock.

Additionally, we limited the analysis to places that have over 2,000 people. This left us with a grand total of 17 suburbs to evaluate around Little Rock.

We ranked each place with scores from 1 to 17 in each category, where 1 was the “best.

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

Finally, we crowned the city with the best quality of life index, the “Best Suburb near Little Rock.” We’re lookin’ at you, Maumelle.

This result may differ from our state-wide data as we did not include commute times and crime for this analysis to allow for a more extensive selection of suburbs.

We updated the data for 2026. This report is our eleventh time ranking the best Little Rock suburbs. Skip to the end to see the list of all the suburbs ranked from best to worst.