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 Philadelphia might be more expensive than living in rural Pennsylvania, there are certain neighborhoods that are definitely cheaper.
What exactly are those Philadelphia 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 Philadelphia are the cheapest using Saturday Night Science.
89 cost of living index
92 cost of living index
93 cost of living index
87 cost of living index
86 cost of living index
86 cost of living index
103 cost of living index
93 cost of living index
95 cost of living index
96 cost of living index
The receipts
Compare the top ten
Pick a metric. The bars rescale. The red line is Pennsylvania’s statewide median.
Saturday Night Science
Methodology: How we determined the cheapest Philadelphia hoods in 2026
To rank the cheapest places to live in Philadelphia, 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 56 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 Philadelphia.” We’re lookin’ at you, Marconi Plaza-Packer Park.
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 Philadelphia for 2026
Click any column to sort. Search by neighborhood name.
| Rank | Neighborhood | Cost Of Living Index |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Marconi Plaza-Packer Park | 89 |
| 2 | Wissanoning | 92 |
| 3 | Oak Lane | 93 |
| 4 | Haddington-Carroll Park | 87 |
| 5 | Alleghany West | 86 |
| 5 | Tioga-Nicetown | 86 |
| 7 | Academy Gardens | 103 |
| 8 | Morris Park | 93 |
| 9 | Holmesburry-Torresdale | 95 |
| 10 | Mayfield | 96 |
| 11 | Logan-Fern Rock | 89 |
| 11 | Hunting Park | 89 |
| 13 | Juniata Park-Feltonville | 90 |
| 14 | East Falls | 117 |
| 14 | Cedar Brook | 97 |
| 16 | Strawberry Mansion | 90 |
| 17 | Eastwick | 101 |
| 18 | Summerdale | 99 |
| 18 | Richmond | 99 |
| 20 | Manayunk | 117 |
| 21 | Byberry | 104 |
| 22 | Torresdale | 103 |
| 23 | Roxborough | 114 |
| 24 | Olney | 94 |
| 25 | Frankford | 92 |
| 26 | Fox Chase | 108 |
| 26 | Grays Ferry | 102 |
| 28 | Fairhill | 86 |
| 29 | Wynnefield | 101 |
| 30 | Belmont | 93 |
| 31 | Germantown | 91 |
| 32 | Somerton | 109 |
| 32 | Kensington | 97 |
| 34 | Cobbs Creek | 94 |
| 35 | Elmwood | 94 |
| 35 | Mount Airy | 107 |
| 37 | Girard Estates | 112 |
| 37 | Harrowgate | 92 |
| 39 | Oxford Circle | 100 |
| 40 | Rhawnhurst | 105 |
| 41 | Riverfront | 135 |
| 42 | Pennsport-Whitman-Queen | 106 |
| 43 | South Philadelphia | 101 |
| 44 | Bustleton | 109 |
| 45 | Schuylkill Southwest | 118 |
| 46 | Hartranft | 91 |
| 47 | Brewerytown | 106 |
| 48 | Chestnut Hill | 143 |
| 49 | Poplar-Ludlow-Yorktowne | 101 |
| 50 | Fairmount-Spring Garden | 121 |
| 51 | Fishtown | 126 |
| 52 | Wharton-Hawthorne-Bella Vista | 113 |
| 53 | Point Breeze | 111 |
| 54 | City Center East | 140 |
| 55 | City Center West | 137 |
| 56 | North Central | 111 |
Source: U.S. Census ACS 2020-2024. All 56 Philadelphia neighborhoods.
Summary
Summary: Lowest cost places to live in Philadelphia
If you’re measuring the neighborhoods in Philadelphia where prices are low, and it’s cheap to live, this is an accurate list.
The most affordable neighborhoods in Philadelphia are Marconi Plaza-Packer Park, Wissanoning, Oak Lane, Haddington-Carroll Park, Alleghany West, Tioga-Nicetown, Academy Gardens, Morris Park, Holmesburry-Torresdale, and Mayfield.
As mentioned earlier, the neighborhoods in Philadelphia aren’t all cheap. North Central takes the title of the most expensive neighborhood to live in Philadelphia.
We ranked the neighborhoods from cheapest to most expensive in the chart below. Not sold on Pennsylvania? Take the two-minute Find Your Place quiz and see which state actually fits you.
Questions and answers
Cheapest Neighborhoods In Philadelphia FAQs
What is the cheapest neighborhood in Philadelphia?
Marconi Plaza-Packer Park is the cheapest neighborhood in Philadelphia for 2026. It posts the best combination of overall cost of living, rent against income, and home prices against income. Wissanoning and Oak Lane are next.
What are the cheapest neighborhoods in Philadelphia?
The cheapest neighborhoods in Philadelphia are Marconi Plaza-Packer Park, Wissanoning, Oak Lane, Haddington-Carroll Park, Alleghany West, Tioga-Nicetown, Academy Gardens, Morris Park, Holmesburry-Torresdale, and Mayfield. We ranked all 56 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 Philadelphia ranking before you sign a lease, because cheap and safe are separate questions.
What is the most expensive neighborhood in Philadelphia?
North Central lands at the expensive end of the 56 neighborhoods we scored. If your budget disagrees with it, the rest of the list runs cheaper.
