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 Detroit might be more expensive than living in rural Michigan, there are certain neighborhoods that are definitely cheaper.
What exactly are those Detroit 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 Detroit are the cheapest using Saturday Night Science.
77 cost of living index
81 cost of living index
82 cost of living index
83 cost of living index
86 cost of living index
82 cost of living index
86 cost of living index
83 cost of living index
82 cost of living index
82 cost of living index
The receipts
Compare the top ten
Pick a metric. The bars rescale. The red line is Michigan’s statewide median.
Saturday Night Science
Methodology: How we determined the cheapest Detroit hoods in 2026
To rank the cheapest places to live in Detroit, 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 82 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 Detroit.” We’re lookin’ at you, Eliza Howell.
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 Detroit for 2026
Click any column to sort. Search by neighborhood name.
| Rank | Neighborhood | Cost Of Living Index |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Eliza Howell | 77 |
| 2 | Kranz Woods | 81 |
| 3 | Aviation | 82 |
| 4 | Michigan-Martin | 83 |
| 5 | Regent Park | 86 |
| 6 | English Village | 82 |
| 7 | Grandmont | 86 |
| 8 | Greensbriar | 83 |
| 9 | Ravendale | 82 |
| 10 | Lasalle College Park | 82 |
| 11 | Springwells | 83 |
| 12 | Gold Coast | 86 |
| 13 | East English Village | 88 |
| 14 | Riverdale | 83 |
| 15 | Chaldean Town | 82 |
| 16 | Southwest Detroit | 85 |
| 16 | Pulaski | 83 |
| 18 | Five Points | 84 |
| 19 | Park | 89 |
| 20 | Fitzgerald | 84 |
| 21 | Mohican Regent | 85 |
| 21 | Fishkorn | 80 |
| 23 | Franklin Park | 84 |
| 24 | Brightmoor | 83 |
| 25 | Conner Creek Ind | 97 |
| 26 | Hubbard-Richard | 88 |
| 27 | Petosky-Otsego | 82 |
| 28 | Grandale | 83 |
| 29 | Barton-McFarland | 83 |
| 29 | North Rosedale Park | 96 |
| 31 | Berg-Lasher | 84 |
| 32 | Morningside | 86 |
| 33 | Martin Park | 87 |
| 34 | Poletown East | 82 |
| 35 | Van Steuban | 84 |
| 36 | Warrendale | 83 |
| 36 | Castle Rouge | 85 |
| 38 | The Eye | 85 |
| 39 | McDougall-Hunt | 84 |
| 40 | Old Redford | 98 |
| 41 | Minock Park | 89 |
| 42 | Eight Mile Wyoming | 85 |
| 42 | Millenium Village | 90 |
| 44 | Woodbridge | 108 |
| 45 | Russell Woods | 85 |
| 45 | Joseph Barry | 90 |
| 47 | Jefferson Chalmers | 91 |
| 47 | Bagley | 90 |
| 49 | University District | 108 |
| 50 | Lasalle Gardens | 89 |
| 51 | Sherwood Forest | 113 |
| 52 | Boynton | 86 |
| 53 | Carbon Works | 82 |
| 54 | Marina District | 113 |
| 54 | Herman Gardens | 85 |
| 56 | Rosedale Park | 100 |
| 57 | Green Acres | 101 |
| 58 | Indian Village | 125 |
| 59 | Alden Park | 88 |
| 60 | Grandmont-Rosedale | 89 |
| 60 | Detroit Golf | 113 |
| 62 | Chandler Park | 87 |
| 63 | Corktown | 111 |
| 64 | Nw Goldberg | 81 |
| 65 | Weatherby | 88 |
| 66 | Belmont | 87 |
| 67 | Islandview | 87 |
| 68 | Jefferies | 99 |
| 69 | New Center | 103 |
| 70 | Lafayette Park | 98 |
| 71 | Briggs | 90 |
| 72 | West Side Industrial | 116 |
| 73 | Downtown | 126 |
| 73 | Elmwood Park | 88 |
| 75 | Rivertown | 111 |
| 76 | Core City | 89 |
| 77 | Forest Park | 90 |
| 77 | Midtown | 118 |
| 79 | West Village | 100 |
| 80 | Wayne State | 110 |
| 81 | Art Center | 111 |
| 82 | Brush Park | 132 |
Source: U.S. Census ACS 2020-2024. All 82 Detroit neighborhoods.
Summary
Summary: Lowest cost places to live in Detroit
If you’re measuring the neighborhoods in Detroit where prices are low, and it’s cheap to live, this is an accurate list.
The most affordable neighborhoods in Detroit are Eliza Howell, Kranz Woods, Aviation, Michigan-Martin, Regent Park, English Village, Grandmont, Greensbriar, Ravendale, and Lasalle College Park.
As mentioned earlier, the neighborhoods in Detroit aren’t all cheap. Brush Park takes the title of the most expensive neighborhood to live in Detroit.
We ranked the neighborhoods from cheapest to most expensive in the chart below. Not sold on Michigan? Take the two-minute Find Your Place quiz and see which state actually fits you.
Questions and answers
Cheapest Neighborhoods In Detroit FAQs
What is the cheapest neighborhood in Detroit?
Eliza Howell is the cheapest neighborhood in Detroit for 2026. It posts the best combination of overall cost of living, rent against income, and home prices against income. Kranz Woods and Aviation are next.
What are the cheapest neighborhoods in Detroit?
The cheapest neighborhoods in Detroit are Eliza Howell, Kranz Woods, Aviation, Michigan-Martin, Regent Park, English Village, Grandmont, Greensbriar, Ravendale, and Lasalle College Park. We ranked all 82 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 Detroit ranking before you sign a lease, because cheap and safe are separate questions.
What is the most expensive neighborhood in Detroit?
Brush Park lands at the expensive end of the 82 neighborhoods we scored. If your budget disagrees with it, the rest of the list runs cheaper.
