The 10 Best Scottsdale Suburbs To Live In For 2026

The 10 Best Scottsdale Suburbs To Live For 2026

Paradise Valley is always mentioned as one of the best suburbs in the Scottsdale area. We’ll tell you the good about “Awesome Paradise Valley.”

Everyone here is rich; families average $247,159 a year, which is the highest in the Scottsdale region. And only 2.13% are out of work. Homes average more than $3,474,596 each.

Gilbert is the second best ‘burb we looked at near Scottsdale for 2026.

It ranks 3rd for incomes in the area and only 6.26% of residents lack insurance, good for 4th best.

Review Of Gilbert by HomeSnacks User

Gilbert, Arizona is a fast growing community in the east valley of phoenix. The schools are absolutely amazing especially Gilbert Public Schools. There is very little crime and a ton of out door splash pads and parks.

The number of restaurants grows buy the month! Down town Gilbert has such a fun family friendly vibe with a farmers market every week. Gilbert is appealing to young families because of the safe neighborhoods and the great schools.

Here in Carefree, it’s really safe, and residents are just about as rich as you’ll see in the Scottsdale 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 Carefree.

Chandler ranks as the 4th best suburb of Scottsdale for 2026.

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

Coming in as the fifth best is Fountain Hills.

Fountain Hills gets kudos for having the 4th most expensive homes in the Scottsdale area, where houses sell for an average of $670,052. However, the cost of living here is among the highest in the area.

Cave Creek 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 2.67%.

According to online reports, Cave Creek is quickly becoming one of the more affluent suburbs in the Scottsdale area, meaning you need to get in soon.

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

Peoria 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 26.6 miles to downtown, which is a good thing.

Review Of Peoria by HomeSnacks User

It was mainly suburban areas there so not much as far as crime, but being in the big city you always have the chance of something happening.

I really liked going to the outdoor malls and all the wonderful mexican food restaraunts. One restaraunt to look out for is Filibertos mexican food. The bad thing is that it is the suburbs so there isn’t much to do as in activities.

Mesa 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 10.57% of people lack insurance, good for 11th in the area.

Review Of Mesa by HomeSnacks User

The crime rate in my neighborhood is low. The schools are great. And there are plenty to do. There’s a water park, laser tag, movies, bowling, and an arcade, not to mention libraries and parks.

Water parks and swimming pools are a great way to keep cool.

Is ‘Everything Better In Tempe?’

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.

Review Of Tempe by HomeSnacks User

There was alot to do here in Tempe. Parks the YMCA and amusement parks nearby. It’s a nice beautiful fun city. There are alot of stores nearby and places to go shopping. It’s hard to get bored because there is so much to do.

Castles and coasters is a great amusement park to go to. Everything is close by. People are very friendly. There is also beautiful scenery.

And rounding out the top ten for 2026 is Phoenix.

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.

Review Of Phoenix by HomeSnacks User

Crime was usually seen at least every day, with shootings or gun violence at fast food restaurants at least once a month. A university began volunteering in the community and would clean the streets, offer services, etc. The roads are bumpy and old, and the drivers are seemingly unsafe and run red lights/cut people off all the time. There are homeless people on every corner and freeway enterence.

There is a Joyride Taco and Federal Pizza on central and camelback that has great food, and The Biltmore shopping area is a reasonably safe mall with lots of stores and places to eat.

Methodology: How We Determined The Best Suburbs Around Scottsdale for 2026

Figuring out the best suburbs around Scottsdale 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 Scottsdale.

Additionally, we limited the analysis to places that have over 3,000 people. This left us with a grand total of 15 suburbs to evaluate around Scottsdale.

We ranked each place with scores from 1 to 15 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 Scottsdale.” We’re lookin’ at you, Paradise Valley.

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 Scottsdale suburbs. Skip to the end to see the list of all the suburbs ranked from best to worst.