The suburbs of Baltimore call to all types of people looking to escape city live. Some people would prefer to live in the cities and towns that surround Baltimore to avoid all the hustle and bustle.
So the question arises, do the suburbs maintain a semblance of the larger-than-life appeal of their more famous neighbor?
Today, we’ll use science and data to determine which Baltimore ‘burbs need a little tender loving care – the sore thumbs of the Baltimore area if you will. Realistically, you can’t expect all the suburbs to live up to Baltimore proper, although University Park certainly tries.
Of course, not all suburbs of Baltimore are created equally, which is precisely why we set out to find the best ones..
We examined the 19 biggest suburbs of Baltimore to find out the worst places to live. And while you won’t necessarily find them on the worst places to live in Maryland lists, these ten places are a little too far downwind of Baltimore in terms of quality of life.
Here are the 10 worst suburbs around Baltimore for 2023:
What’s the worst suburb of Baltimore? Greenbelt ranks as the worst suburb of Baltimore for 2023 based on the most recent Census and FBI data.
Read on to see how we determined the places around Baltimore that need a pick-me-up. And remember, don’t blame the messenger.
Or, if you’re thinking of moving to elsewhere in Maryland check out the best places in Maryland overall or the worst.
And remember, there are some good places to live around Baltimore too.
Article Table Of Contents
For more Maryland reading, check out:
- Best Places To Live In Maryland
- Cheapest Places To Live In Maryland
- Most Dangerous Cities In Maryland
The 10 Worst Baltimore Suburbs To Live For 2023
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We’ll get the ball rolling with Greenbelt, the absolute worst place to live around Baltimore according to the data.
And in the world of worst rankings, Greenbelt beat the competition pretty handily thanks to scoring in the bottom 15% in three major categories. Income is the 6th worst in the Baltimore area, and to make matters worse, the city ranks 2nd worst when it comes to home values.
But hey, at least it’s cheap to live there. But there’s a reason for that… it’s Greenbelt.
You won’t feel bad about not having a great income for the area, there aren’t a bunch of places to spend your money anyway.
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Population: 2,075
Rank Last Year: 4 (Up 2)
Median Income: $82,083 (8th lowest)
Unemployment Rate: 11.5% (2nd highest)
Median Home Value: $276,800 (5th lowest)
More on Landover Hills: Data
Welcome to Landover Hills. Home to KMart, Big Lots, and a lot of gas stations.
This city is 29.0 miles to Baltimore. Income levels here are the 8th lowest in the metro area, where families bring in about $82,083 a year, which doesn’t go a long ways even on a shoestring budget.
But on the bright side, there are a lot of fast food joints in the area.
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Back up the highway we go for the third worst Baltimore suburb you can live in. You might have expected to see Westminster on here. While the cost of living is low, your entertainment and work options are limited. And that’s an understatement.
In terms of numbers, it’s in the worst 15% for insurance, and the adult high school drop out rate is poor compared to other Baltimore suburbs.
But at least there are nice parks to bring the kids during the day.
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If you live in Bladensburg, most likely you struggle to make ends meet every month. It ranks as the lowest Baltimore suburb when it comes to residents making money.
Not only that, but this is the worst unemployed suburb you can live in if you choose to live near Baltimore. Remember, we looked at 19 cities for this study.
Bladensburg is about 29.9 miles to downtown.
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Aberdeen has the distinction of being a Baltimore suburb. Which means that’s about all it has going for it.
All snarkiness aside, Aberdeen has the lowest home values in the metro Baltimore area, where the median price is $203,700. To put that into perspective, in University Park, the median income is $159,464, which is the best in the area.
Aberdeen has an unemployment rate of 3.99% which ranks 14th worst.
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College Park has 34,961 residents that probably know it’s a pretty crummy place to live when you look at the data. (Or, if you’ve ever been there, you don’t need to look at the data.)
Incomes are towards the bottom and the poverty rate sits at 25.31608595868975%.
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Ah, Riverdale Park. You rank as the 7th worst place to live around Baltimore.
It’s the place with the 13th most out of work residents in the Baltimore metro area (4.43%).
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New Carrollton is a city about 27.1 miles from Baltimore, but Baltimore probably wishes it was further away. It ranks as the 8th worst burb for 2018.
You’d be hard pressed to find a worse place to live. New Carrollton has the 5th most uninsured people, 5th worst incomes, and has the 3rd highest unemployment rate (11.49%) in the entire Baltimore metro area.
Homes only cost $312,800 for a reason. That’s cheap for Baltimore standards.
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If you absolutely have to live near Baltimore, then Hampstead might be a place for you to consider as it’s only the 9th worst Baltimore suburb.
About 7.19% of residents are out of work.
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Rounding out the ten worst Baltimore suburbs to call home is Laurel.
Located 19.5 miles outside the city, Laurels is a real pit when you look at the data. Its residents have the 9th highest unemployment rate (5.05%), and poverty is far above the area average.
Methodology: Determining The Worst Suburbs Around Baltimore for 2023
To figure out how bad a Baltimore suburb is to live in, we only needed to know what kinds of things people like and then decide what suburbs have the least amount of those things.
We threw a lot of criteria at this one in order to get the best, most complete results possible. Using the most recent American Community Survey data from 2017-2021, this is the criteria we used:
- High unemployment rate
- Low median household incomes
- Low population density (no things to do)
- Low home values
- A lot of high school drop outs
- High poverty
- High rate of uninsured families
FYI: We defined a suburb as being within 30 miles of Baltimore.
Additionally, we limited the analysis to places that have over 2,000 people. This left us with a grand total of 19 suburbs to evaluate around Baltimore.
We ranked each place with scores from 1 to 19 in each category, where 1 was the “worst”.
Next, we averaged the rankings for each place to create a quality of life index.
And finally, we crowned the city with the worst quality of life index the “Worst Suburb near Baltimore.” We’re lookin’ at you, Greenbelt.
Read on below to learn more about what it’s like to live in the worst of the worst. Or skip to the end to see the list of all the suburbs ranked from worst to best.
Summary: The areas around Baltimore where the dream is more of a nightmare for 2023
Well there you have it — the worst of the ‘burbs surrounding Baltimore with Greenbelt casting itself ahead of the pack.
As we mentioned earlier, the suburbs around Baltimore aren’t all bad. University Park takes the cake as the best place to live around Baltimore.
- University Park
- Mount Airy
- Sykesville
For more Maryland reading, check out:
- Best Places To Retire In Maryland
- Richest Cities In Maryland
- Safest Places In Maryland
- Worst Places To Live In Maryland
Detailed List Of The Worst Baltimore Suburbs
| Rank | City | Population |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Greenbelt | 24,602 |
| 2 | Landover Hills | 2,075 |
| 3 | Westminster | 19,783 |
| 4 | Bladensburg | 9,591 |
| 5 | Aberdeen | 16,176 |
| 6 | College Park | 34,961 |
| 7 | Riverdale Park | 7,321 |
| 8 | New Carrollton | 13,574 |
| 9 | Hampstead | 6,273 |
| 10 | Laurel | 29,438 |
| 11 | Berwyn Heights | 3,317 |
| 12 | Hyattsville | 20,790 |
| 13 | Annapolis | 40,581 |
| 14 | Glenarden | 6,341 |
| 15 | Manchester | 5,350 |
| 16 | Bowie | 58,113 |
| 17 | Sykesville | 4,260 |
| 18 | Mount Airy | 9,621 |
| 19 | University Park | 2,701 |
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