The suburbs of Greensboro call to all types of people looking to escape city live. Some people would prefer to live in the cities and towns that surround Greensboro 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 Greensboro ‘burbs need a little tender loving care – the sore thumbs of the Greensboro area if you will. Realistically, you can’t expect all the suburbs to live up to Greensboro proper, although Oak Ridge certainly tries.
Of course, not all suburbs of Greensboro are created equally, which is precisely why we set out to find the best ones..
We examined the 31 biggest suburbs of Greensboro to find out the worst places to live. And while you won’t necessarily find them on the worst places to live in North Carolina lists, these ten places are a little too far downwind of Greensboro in terms of quality of life.
Here are the 10 worst suburbs around Greensboro for 2023:
What’s the worst suburb of Greensboro? Mayodan ranks as the worst suburb of Greensboro for 2023 based on the most recent Census and FBI data.
Read on to see how we determined the places around Greensboro that need a pick-me-up. And remember, don’t blame the messenger.
Or, if you’re thinking of moving to elsewhere in North Carolina check out the best places in North Carolina overall or the worst.
And remember, there are some good places to live around Greensboro too.
Article Table Of Contents
For more North Carolina reading, check out:
- Best Places To Live In North Carolina
- Cheapest Places To Live In North Carolina
- Most Dangerous Cities In North Carolina
The 10 Worst Greensboro Suburbs To Live For 2023
/10
Population: 2,428
Rank Last Year: 1 (No Change)
Median Income: $31,546 (2nd lowest)
Unemployment Rate: 14.5% (highest)
Median Home Value: $86,100 (lowest)
More on Mayodan: Data
We’ll get the ball rolling with Mayodan, the absolute worst place to live around Greensboro according to the data.
And in the world of worst rankings, Mayodan beat the competition pretty handily thanks to scoring in the bottom 15% in three major categories. Income is the 2nd worst in the Greensboro area, and to make matters worse, the city ranks 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 Mayodan.
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: 2,660
Rank Last Year: 1 (Down 1)
Median Income: $41,657 (7th lowest)
Unemployment Rate: 9.8% (2nd highest)
Median Home Value: $121,000 (7th lowest)
More on Liberty: Data
Welcome to Liberty. Home to KMart, Big Lots, and a lot of gas stations.
This city is 22.0 miles to Greensboro. Income levels here are the 7th lowest in the metro area, where families bring in about $41,657 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 Greensboro suburb you can live in. You might have expected to see Reidsville 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 Greensboro suburbs.
But at least there are nice parks to bring the kids during the day.
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If you live in Asheboro, most likely you struggle to make ends meet every month. It ranks as the 6th lowest Greensboro suburb when it comes to residents making money.
Not only that, but this is the 5th worst unemployed suburb you can live in if you choose to live near Greensboro. Remember, we looked at 31 cities for this study.
Asheboro is about 26.1 miles to downtown.
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Haw River has the distinction of being a Greensboro suburb. Which means that’s about all it has going for it.
All snarkiness aside, Haw River has the 4th lowest home values in the metro Greensboro area, where the median price is $101,200. To put that into perspective, in Oak Ridge, the median income is $132,298, which is the best in the area.
Haw River has an unemployment rate of 4.11% which ranks 18th worst.
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Thomasville has 26,941 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 19.923617938440604%.
/10
Population: 3,015
Rank Last Year: 8 (Up 1)
Median Income: $33,514 (3rd lowest)
Unemployment Rate: 1.3% (30th highest)
Median Home Value: $103,100 (5th lowest)
More on Green Level: Data
Ah, Green Level. You rank as the 7th worst place to live around Greensboro.
It’s the place with the 30th most out of work residents in the Greensboro metro area (1.3%).
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Eden is a city about 28.5 miles from Greensboro, but Greensboro 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. Eden has the 23rd most uninsured people, 8th worst incomes, and has the 4th highest unemployment rate (7.77%) in the entire Greensboro metro area.
Homes only cost $96,300 for a reason. That’s cheap for Greensboro standards.
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Population: 1,701
Rank Last Year: 6 (Down 3)
Median Income: $25,300 (lowest)
Unemployment Rate: 1.1% (3highest)
Median Home Value: $99,400 (3rd lowest)
More on Ramseur: Data
If you absolutely have to live near Greensboro, then Ramseur might be a place for you to consider as it’s only the 9th worst Greensboro suburb.
About 1.07% of residents are out of work.
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Rounding out the ten worst Greensboro suburbs to call home is Graham.
Located 24.6 miles outside the city, Grahams is a real pit when you look at the data. Its residents have the 8th highest unemployment rate (6.55%), and poverty is far above the area average.
Methodology: Determining The Worst Suburbs Around Greensboro for 2023
To figure out how bad a Greensboro 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 Greensboro.
Additionally, we limited the analysis to places that have over 1,000 people. This left us with a grand total of 31 suburbs to evaluate around Greensboro.
We ranked each place with scores from 1 to 31 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 Greensboro.” We’re lookin’ at you, Mayodan.
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 Greensboro where the dream is more of a nightmare for 2023
Well there you have it — the worst of the ‘burbs surrounding Greensboro with Mayodan casting itself ahead of the pack.
As we mentioned earlier, the suburbs around Greensboro aren’t all bad. Oak Ridge takes the cake as the best place to live around Greensboro.
- Oak Ridge
- Gibsonville
- Summerfield
For more North Carolina reading, check out:
- Best Places To Retire In North Carolina
- Richest Cities In North Carolina
- Safest Cities in North Carolina
- Worst Places To Live In North Carolina
Detailed List Of The Worst Greensboro Suburbs
Rank | City | Population |
---|---|---|
1 | Mayodan | 2,428 |
2 | Liberty | 2,660 |
3 | Reidsville | 14,463 |
4 | Asheboro | 26,729 |
5 | Haw River | 2,579 |
6 | Thomasville | 26,941 |
7 | Green Level | 3,015 |
8 | Eden | 15,317 |
9 | Ramseur | 1,701 |
10 | Graham | 16,793 |
11 | Madison | 2,244 |
12 | Randleman | 4,550 |
13 | Wentworth | 2,655 |
14 | Walnut Cove | 2,419 |
15 | Burlington | 56,563 |
16 | Winston-Salem | 247,917 |
17 | Trinity | 6,981 |
18 | High Point | 113,148 |
19 | Jamestown | 15,823 |
20 | Rural Hall | 3,332 |
21 | Midway | 4,743 |
22 | Archdale | 12,117 |
23 | Wallburg | 3,058 |
24 | Kernersville | 26,376 |
25 | Stokesdale | 5,895 |
26 | Elon | 11,059 |
27 | Pleasant Garden | 4,990 |
28 | Swepsonville | 2,394 |
29 | Summerfield | 11,026 |
30 | Gibsonville | 8,684 |
31 | Oak Ridge | 7,461 |