Are you sick of being a city slicker?
Do you long for life in suburban Florida? Where you can drive your overly-large vehicle to the store for groceries, and schlep the kids around to practices and appointments without worrying about a parking space?
We do too.
Public transportation is…icky at times. When you have to call an Uber to get to urgent care on a Friday night, that gets old after a while.
So, the question is, if you wanted to move out to the suburbs of Tallahassee, where would you go? And how would you decide on the ranking factors to help you pick which Florida suburb was best?
No worries. We got it all figured out here.
These are the 10 best suburbs in the Sunshine State:
- Key Biscayne (Photos)
- Coral Gables (Photos)
- Parkland (Photos)
- Surfside (Photos)
- Longboat Key (Photos)
- Belle Isle (Photos)
- Neptune Beach (Photos)
- Maitland (Photos)
- Lake Mary (Photos)
- Weston (Photos)
Key Biscayne is the place to be when it comes to being a soccer mom in suburban Florida.
So if you’re thinking of packing up your mini van and making a move to a quiet place to live in Florida, we’ve got you covered.
Keep on reading for a detailed methodology. Or, check out the best places to live in Florida and the best places to raise a family in Florida.
How do you determine which suburb is the best in Florida anyways?
To give you the best suburbs in Florida, we have to look at a handful of metrics. Of course, we want to measure the type of people who live in each city, and make some assumptions about what’s a “best city” and what isn’t.
So we researched the internet for a database that contains all that information.
How we crunched the suburb numbers for the Sunshine State
We threw a lot of criteria at this one in order to get the best, most complete results possible. Using U.S. Census data produced for the state of Florida, we looked at every town between 5,000 and 200,000 residents, and within 30 miles of a city that’s over 200,000 people (In other words, suburbs).
We paid particular attention to:
- Median Home Values
- Median Income
- Population Density (Higher is Better)
- Unemployment Rates
- Commute Time
- Education Levels
- Health Insurance Coverage
- Poverty Rates
We ranked each suburb in Florida across a number of criteria from one to 90, with one being the best.
We then took the average rank across all criteria, with the town posting the lowest overall score being crowned the winner of the title “Best Suburb To Live In Florida”.
The result is some of the safest, quiet, and awesome places to live in Florida
Read on to see why Key Biscayne is the ‘burb with the most, while Homestead is probably not the best place to live in Florida.
1. Key Biscayne
Population: 12,935
Median Income: $124,504
Median Home Price: $1,034,800
Key Biscayne is located 6 miles south of Miami.
2. Coral Gables
Population: 50,533
Median Income: $91,452
Median Home Price: $696,000
Coral Gables is located 7 miles south of Miami.
3. Parkland
Population: 28,354
Median Income: $128,292
Median Home Price: $490,100
Parkland is located 30 miles north of Hialeah.
4. Surfside
Population: 5,810
Median Income: $72,266
Median Home Price: $561,900
Surfside is located 8 miles north of Miami.
5. Longboat Key
Population: 7,158
Median Income: $87,201
Median Home Price: $660,300
Longboat Key is located 25 miles south of St. Petersburg.
6. Belle Isle
Population: 6,542
Median Income: $75,135
Median Home Price: $252,000
Belle Isle is located 4 miles west of Orlando.
7. Neptune Beach
Population: 6,817
Median Income: $74,286
Median Home Price: $338,800
Neptune Beach is located 16 miles east of Jacksonville.
8. Maitland
Population: 16,911
Median Income: $64,144
Median Home Price: $303,900
Maitland is located 15 miles north of Orlando.
9. Lake Mary
Population: 15,478
Median Income: $90,930
Median Home Price: $268,800
Lake Mary is located 23 miles north of Orlando.
10. Weston
Population: 68,893
Median Income: $93,883
Median Home Price: $414,100
Weston is located 17 miles north of Hialeah.
There You Have It – The Best Suburbs In Florida
Here’s a look at the worst suburbs in Florida according to the data:
- Homestead
- Opa-Locka
- Lauderdale Lakes
For more Florida reading, check out:
- 10 Most Ghetto Cities In Florida
- 10 Most Dangerous Places In Florida
- 10 Worst Places To Live In Florida