The 10 Best Portland Suburbs To Live In For 2022

The 10 Best Portland Suburbs To Live For 2022

Sherwood is always mentioned as one of the best suburbs in the Portland area. We'll tell you the good about "Awesome Sherwood."

Everyone here is rich; families average $107,537 a year, which is the 5th highest in the Portland region. And only 2.78% are out of work. Homes average more than $426,400 each.

Lake Oswego is the second best 'burb we looked at near Portland for 2022.

It ranks 4th for incomes in the area and only 2.9% of residents lack insurance, good for 4th best.

Here in Happy Valley, it's really safe, and residents are just about as rich as you'll see in the Portland 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 Happy Valley.

West Linn ranks as the 4th best suburb of Portland for 2022.

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

Coming in as the fifth best is Camas.

Camas gets kudos for having the 4th most expensive homes in the Portland area, where houses sell for an average of $458,000. However, the cost of living here is among the highest in the area.

North Plains 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 3.06% which is 10th best in the area.

According to online reports, North Plains is quickly becoming one of the more affluent suburbs in the Portland area, meaning you need to get in soon.

The 7th best suburb on our list goes to La Center.

La Center 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 22.7 miles to downtown, which is a good thing.

Tigard 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 5.43% of people lack insurance, good for 18th in the area.

Is 'Everything Better In Oregon?'

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 2022 is Ridgefield.

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 Portland for 2022

Figuring out the best suburbs around Portland 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
• Low poverty
• High rate of insured families

Then we used the newest American Community Survey data for 2016-2020 to research each suburb.

FYI: We defined a suburb as being within 30 miles of Portland.

Additionally, we limited the analysis to places that have over 2,000 people. This left us with a grand total of 36 suburbs to evaluate around Portland.

We ranked each place with scores from 1 to 36 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 Portland." We're lookin' at you, Sherwood. You can download the data here.

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.