150 Best Illinois Cities to Call Home: Is Yours One?

Where are the best places to live in Illinois? No one will be surprised the top of the list is packed with North Shore and west suburban communities, towns with gorgeous housing, quality schools and residents with flush bank accounts.

Topping the list is Wilmette, a North Shore suburb that gave us the beautiful Ann-Margret, the hilarious Bill Murray, and the legendary Charlton Heston.

RoadSnacks.net, in analyzing 342 of the state’s most populous cities, recently ranked the best and worst places to live in Illinois using FBI crime data, the government census, Labor Bureau statistics and Sperling’s Best Places. The website’s rankings are based on unemployment, housing, median income, education, crime and population density. Many of these communities perennially rank high on annual Time, Money and Business Week lists of the Best Places to Live.

Here is what RoadSnacks has to say about its Top 5:

• Wilmette: “The Village of Wilmette has it made. ... It’s by far the best place to live in the state of Illinois. The unemployment rate is the 8th lowest in the state at 5%, and residents make a pretty penny. Average home incomes are $130,000, and the average cost of a home is $545,000. Which is an indication that lots of people want to live here.”

• Buffalo Grove: “The Village of Buffalo Grove, another affluent Chicago suburb, also has great schools, low crime and a low unemployment rate. There are only five other school districts that spend more per student than the schools in Buffalo Grove.”

• Highland Park: “There isn’t a city in the state of Illinois that has a lower unemployment rate–4.6%–than Highland Park. And they are solid paying jobs as well. Households here bring in about $115,000 a year in combined income.”

• Deerfield: “Deerfield High School is always atop the state rankings when it comes to academics, and Deerfield is home to several leading technology and medical companies. The crime rate is actually a lot lower in Deerfield than it is in Highland Park. Statistically, Deerfield is the 21st safest place you can live in Illinois.”

• Hindsale: “Crime is something that doesn’t happen very often in the Village of Hinsdale. Statistically the 30th safest place in the state, there were only two violent crimes in the entire city in 2013. ... It’s really beautiful in Hinsdale, and new homes continue to replace older homes. Resident earn $165,000 a year, and homes are valued at more than $700,000.”

Also on Patch

• 150 Worst Illinois Cities to Call Home

Check the full list of Best Towns and offer your views in the comments.

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photo by Zol87 via Wikimedia / Flickr