These Are The 10 Worst Buffalo Suburbs For 2019

Not everyone is cut out for city life. Some people would prefer to live in the cities and towns that surround Buffalo.

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 Buffalo ‘burbs need a little tender loving care – the sore thumbs of the Buffalo area if you will. Realistically, you can’t expect all the suburbs to live up to Buffalo proper, although Hamburg certainly tries.

Of course, not all suburbs of Buffalo are created equally, which is precisely why we set out to find the best ones. So without further ado…

We examined the 21 biggest suburbs of Buffalo to find out the worst places to live. And while you won’t necessarily find them on the worst places to live in New York lists, these ten places are a little too far downwind of Buffalo in terms of quality of life.

Here are the 10 worst suburbs around Buffalo for 2019:

1. Youngstown
2. Niagara Falls (Photos)
3. Lackawanna (Photos)
4. Blasdell (Photos)
5. Lockport (Photos)
6. Silver Creek
7. Sloan
8. Angola
9. Attica
10. Springville

Read on to see how we determined the places around Buffalo that need a pick-me-up. And remember, don’t blame the messenger.

Or, if you’re thinking of moving to elsewhere in New York check out the best places in New York overall or the worst.

And remember, there are some good places to live around Buffalo too.

Editor’s Note: If you see a slight difference between the worst in state rankings and this suburb ranking, it’s because of the methodology. We needed a way to include more places, so we eliminated crime and commute times as criteria for this analysis.

For more New York reading, check out:

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Determining The Worst Suburbs Around Buffalo for 2019

To figure out how bad a place is to live in, we only needed to know what kinds of things people like and then decide what cities 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 2013-2017, 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 Buffalo.

Additionally, we limited the analysis to places that have over 2,000 people. This left us with a grand total of 21 suburbs to evaluate around Buffalo.

We ranked each place with scores from 1 to 21 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 Buffalo.” We’re lookin’ at you, Youngstown.

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.

We’ll get the ball rolling with Youngstown, the absolute worst place to live around Buffalo according to the data.

And in the world of worst rankings, Youngstown beat the competition pretty handily thanks to scoring in the bottom 15% in three major categories. Income is the 1st worst in the Buffalo area, and to make matters worse, the city ranks 1st 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 Youngstown.

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.

Welcome to Niagara Falls. Home to KMart, Big Lots, and a lot of gas stations.

This city is 15.9 miles to Buffalo. Income levels here are the 2nd lowest in the metro area, where families bring in about $33,965 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.

Back up the highway we go for the third worst Buffalo suburb you can live in. You might have expected to see Lackawanna 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 Buffalo suburbs.

But at least there are nice parks to bring the kids during the day.

If you live in Blasdell, most likely you struggle to make ends meet every month. It ranks as the 5th lowest Buffalo suburb when it comes to residents making money.

Not only that, but this is the 3rd worst unemployed suburb you can live in if you choose to live near Buffalo. Remember, we looked at 21 cities for this study.

Blasdell is about 6.8 miles to downtown.

Lockport has the distinction of being a Buffalo suburb. Which means that’s about all it has going for it.

All snarkiness aside, Lockport has the 5th lowest home values in the metro Buffalo area, where the median price is $88,500. To put that into perspective, in Hamburg, the median income is $89,679, which is the best in the area.

Lockport has an unemployment rate of 6.6% which ranks 8th worst.

Silver Creek has 2,557 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 16.6%.

Ah, Sloan. You rank as the 7th worst place to live around Buffalo.

It’s the place with the 6th most out of work residents in the Buffalo metro area (8.0%).

Angola is a city about 19.6 miles from Buffalo, but Buffalo 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. Angola has the 1st most uninsured people, 15th worst incomes, and has the 9th highest unemployment rate (6.2%) in the entire Buffalo metro area.

Homes only cost $113,400 for a reason. That’s cheap for Buffalo standards.

If you absolutely have to live near Buffalo, then Attica might be a place for you to consider as it’s only the 9th worst Buffalo suburb.

About 6.1% of residents are out of work.

Rounding out the ten worst Buffalo suburbs to call home is Springville.

Located 28.2 miles outside the city, Springvilles is a real pit when you look at the data. Its residents have the 12th highest unemployment rate (5.1%), and poverty is far above the area average.

Next 10 Cities

The areas around Buffalo where the dream is more of a nightmare for 2019

Well there you have it — the worst of the ‘burbs surrounding Buffalo with Youngstown casting itself ahead of the pack.

As we mentioned earlier, the suburbs around Buffalo aren’t all bad. Hamburg takes the cake as the best place to live around Buffalo.

• Hamburg
• Orchard Park
• Williamsville

For more New York reading, check out:

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Detailed List Of The Worst Buffalo Suburbs