These Are The 10 Best Suburbs In Virginia For 2018

Are you sick of being a city slicker?

Do you long for life in suburban Virginia? 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 Richmond, where would you go? And how would you decide on the ranking factors to help you pick which Virginia suburb was best?

No worries. We got it all figured out here.

These are the 10 best suburbs in the Old Dominion:

1. Vienna (Photos)
2. Falls Church (Photos)
3. Poquoson (Photos)
4. Leesburg (Photos)
5. Alexandria (Photos)
6. Herndon (Photos)
7. Fairfax (Photos)
8. Manassas Park (Photos)
9. Smithfield (Photos)
10. Suffolk (Photos)

Vienna is the place to be when it comes to being a soccer mom in suburban Virginia.

So if you’re thinking of packing up your mini van and making a move to a quiet place to live in Virginia, we’ve got you covered.

Keep on reading for a detailed methodology. Or, check out the best places to live in Virginia and the best places to raise a family in Virginia.

How do you determine which suburb is the best in Virginia anyways?

To give you the best suburbs in Virginia, 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 Old Dominion

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 Virginia, we looked at every town between 2,000 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 Virginia across a number of criteria from one to 20, 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 Virginia”.

The result is some of the safest, quiet, and awesome places to live in Virginia

Read on to see why Vienna is the ‘burb with the most, while Petersburg is probably not the best place to live in Virginia.

1. Vienna

Population: 16,378
Median Income: $143,276
Median Home Price: $662,200
Vienna is located 8 miles west of Arlington.

2. Falls Church

Population: 13,597
Median Income: $115,244
Median Home Price: $724,000
Falls Church is located 3 miles west of Arlington.

3. Poquoson

Population: 12,068
Median Income: $84,643
Median Home Price: $301,800
Poquoson is located 14 miles north of Norfolk.

4. Leesburg

Population: 49,401
Median Income: $102,132
Median Home Price: $387,100
Leesburg is located 29 miles west of Arlington.

5. Alexandria

Population: 151,473
Median Income: $89,200
Median Home Price: $520,700
Alexandria is located 4 miles south of Arlington.

6. Herndon

Population: 24,415
Median Income: $104,204
Median Home Price: $401,700
Herndon is located 16 miles west of Arlington.

7. Fairfax

Population: 23,620
Median Income: $104,065
Median Home Price: $487,700
Fairfax is located 10 miles west of Arlington.

8. Manassas Park

Population: 15,827
Median Income: $75,027
Median Home Price: $257,800
Manassas Park is located 20 miles west of Arlington.

9. Smithfield

Population: 8,304
Median Income: $65,907
Median Home Price: $273,900
Smithfield is located 20 miles west of Norfolk.

10. Suffolk

Population: 87,061
Median Income: $65,435
Median Home Price: $236,600
Suffolk is located 18 miles west of Chesapeake.

There You Have It – The Best Suburbs In Virginia

Here’s a look at the worst suburbs in Virginia according to the data:

1. Petersburg
2. Portsmouth
3. Hopewell

For more Virginia reading, check out:

• 10 Most Dangerous Cities In Virginia
• 10 Most Ghetto Cities In Virginia
• 10 Safest Places In Virginia

Detailed List Of The Best Suburbs In Virginia