Everything else equal, we can all agree that living in a cheaper place is better than living in a more expensive place.
I’d much rather pay $500/mo in rent than $1,000. And I’d rather pay $2 for coffee than $5.
And while every neighborhood in Akron might be more expensive than living in rural Ohio, there are certain neighborhoods that are definitely cheaper.
What exactly are those Akron neighborhoods where your dollar goes a little further — you can get that one bedroom instead of the studio?
Instead of relying on public opinion and speculation, we wanted to get the facts straight and determine which neighborhoods in Akron are the cheapest using Saturday Night Science.
78 cost of living index
81 cost of living index
78 cost of living index
84 cost of living index
83 cost of living index
84 cost of living index
81 cost of living index
93 cost of living index
81 cost of living index
80 cost of living index
The receipts
Compare the top ten
Pick a metric. The bars rescale. The red line is Ohio’s statewide median.
Saturday Night Science
Methodology: How we determined the cheapest Akron hoods in 2026
To rank the cheapest places to live in Akron, we had to determine what criteria define “cheap” and then apply Saturday Night Science.
Using Census and extrapolated BLS data, we arrived at the following set of criteria:
- Overall Cost Of Living
- Rent To Income Ratio
- Median Home Value To Income Ratio
We then ranked each neighborhood with scores from 1 to 21 in each category, where 1 was the cheapest.
Next, we averaged the rankings for each neighborhood to create a cheap neighborhood index.
And finally, we crowned the neighborhood with the lowest cheapest neighborhood index, the “Cheapest City Neighborhood In Akron.” We’re lookin’ at you, Summit Lake.
We updated this article for 2026. Skip to the end to see the list of all the neighborhoods in the city, from cheapest to most expensive.
The full plate
Detailed list of the cheapest neighborhoods to live in Akron for 2026
Click any column to sort. Search by neighborhood name.
| Rank | Neighborhood | Cost Of Living Index |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Summit Lake | 78 |
| 2 | South Akron | 81 |
| 3 | University Of Ohio Akron | 78 |
| 4 | Firestone Park | 84 |
| 5 | Kenmore | 83 |
| 6 | Goodyear Heights | 84 |
| 7 | East Akron | 81 |
| 8 | Northwest Akron | 93 |
| 9 | Lane-Wooster | 81 |
| 9 | Middlebury | 80 |
| 11 | Ellet | 87 |
| 12 | Fairlawn Heights | 93 |
| 13 | North Hill | 84 |
| 14 | Chapel Hill | 83 |
| 15 | Highland Square | 87 |
| 16 | Elizabeth Park Valley | 83 |
| 17 | Merriman Valley | 90 |
| 18 | Rolling Acres | 84 |
| 19 | Wallhaven | 94 |
| 20 | Downtown | 82 |
| 20 | West Akron | 85 |
Source: U.S. Census ACS 2020-2024. All 21 Akron neighborhoods.
Summary
Summary: Lowest cost places to live in Akron
If you’re measuring the neighborhoods in Akron where prices are low, and it’s cheap to live, this is an accurate list.
The most affordable neighborhoods in Akron are Summit Lake, South Akron, University Of Ohio Akron, Firestone Park, Kenmore, Goodyear Heights, East Akron, Northwest Akron, Lane-Wooster, and Middlebury.
As mentioned earlier, the neighborhoods in Akron aren’t all cheap. West Akron takes the title of the most expensive neighborhood to live in Akron.
We ranked the neighborhoods from cheapest to most expensive in the chart below. Not sold on Ohio? Take the two-minute Find Your Place quiz and see which state actually fits you.
Questions and answers
Cheapest Neighborhoods In Akron FAQs
What is the cheapest neighborhood in Akron?
Summit Lake is the cheapest neighborhood in Akron for 2026. It posts the best combination of overall cost of living, rent against income, and home prices against income. South Akron and University Of Ohio Akron are next.
What are the cheapest neighborhoods in Akron?
The cheapest neighborhoods in Akron are Summit Lake, South Akron, University Of Ohio Akron, Firestone Park, Kenmore, Goodyear Heights, East Akron, Northwest Akron, Lane-Wooster, and Middlebury. We ranked all 21 neighborhoods in the city.
How do you decide which neighborhoods are cheapest?
Three measures: an overall cost of living index, rent-to-income, and home-value-to-income, all from Census tract data. Scoring costs against local incomes keeps one luxury tower from skewing the math.
Is a cheap neighborhood a bad neighborhood?
Not necessarily — this ranking measures what things cost relative to income, nothing else. Check our safest neighborhoods in Akron ranking before you sign a lease, because cheap and safe are separate questions.
What is the most expensive neighborhood in Akron?
West Akron lands at the expensive end of the 21 neighborhoods we scored. If your budget disagrees with it, the rest of the list runs cheaper.
