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Not everyone is cut out for city life. Some people would prefer to live in the cities and towns that surround Long Beach.
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 Long Beach 'burbs need a little tender loving care - the sore thumbs of the Long Beach area if you will. Realistically, you can't expect all the suburbs to live up to Long Beach proper, although Hermosa Beach certainly tries.
Of course, not all suburbs of Long Beach are created equally, which is precisely why we set out to find the best ones. So without further ado...
We examined the 97 biggest suburbs of Long Beach to find out the worst places to live. And while you won't necessarily find them on the worst places to live in california lists, these ten places are a little too far downwind of Long Beach in terms of quality of life.
Here are the 10 worst suburbs around Long Beach for 2020:
What's the worst suburb of Long Beach? Commerce ranks as the worst suburb of Long Beach for 2020 based on the most recent Census and FBI data.
Read on to see how we determined the places around Long Beach that need a pick-me-up. And remember, don't blame the messenger.
Or, if you're thinking of moving to elsewhere in california check out the best places in california overall or the worst.
And remember, there are some good places to live around Long Beach 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 California reading, check out:
- 10 Best Places To Live In California
- 10 Cheapest Places To Live In California
- 10 Most Dangerous Cities In California
The 10 Worst Long Beach Suburbs To Live For 2020
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We'll get the ball rolling with Commerce, the absolute worst place to live around Long Beach according to the data.
And in the world of worst rankings, Commerce beat the competition pretty handily thanks to scoring in the bottom 15% in three major categories. Income is the 8th worst in the Long Beach area, and to make matters worse, the city ranks 16th 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 Commerce.
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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Welcome to Huntington Park. Home to KMart, Big Lots, and a lot of gas stations.
This city is 12.3 miles to Long Beach. Income levels here are the 2nd lowest in the metro area, where families bring in about $40,638 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 Long Beach suburb you can live in. You might have expected to see Maywood 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 Long Beach suburbs.
But at least there are nice parks to bring the kids during the day.
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If you live in Pomona, most likely you struggle to make ends meet every month. It ranks as the 20th lowest Long Beach suburb when it comes to residents making money.
Not only that, but this is the 8th worst unemployed suburb you can live in if you choose to live near Long Beach. Remember, we looked at 97 cities for this study.
Pomona is about 28.4 miles to downtown.
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Bell Gardens has the distinction of being a Long Beach suburb. Which means that's about all it has going for it.
All snarkiness aside, Bell Gardens has the 14th lowest home values in the metro Long Beach area, where the median price is $380,100. To put that into perspective, in Hermosa Beach, the median income is $175,000, which is the best in the area.
Bell Gardens has an unemployment rate of 7.77% which ranks 13th worst.
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Compton has 97,301 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 21.949608282325734%.
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Ah, Cudahy. You rank as the 7th worst place to live around Long Beach.
It's the place with the 5th most out of work residents in the Long Beach metro area (9.09%).
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South Gate is a city about 9.6 miles from Long Beach, but Long Beach 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. South Gate has the 8th most uninsured people, 12th worst incomes, and has the 1st highest unemployment rate (10.36%) in the entire Long Beach metro area.
Homes only cost $375,900 for a reason. That's cheap for Long Beach standards.
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If you absolutely have to live near Long Beach, then Lynwood might be a place for you to consider as it's only the 9th worst Long Beach suburb.
About 9.0% of residents are out of work.
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Population: 20,727
Rank Last Year: 12 (Up 2)
Median Income: $48,944 (10th lowest)
Unemployment Rate: 6.6% (29th highest)
Median Home Value: $428,200 (24th lowest)
More on South El Monte: Data
Rounding out the ten worst Long Beach suburbs to call home is South El Monte.
Located 17.7 miles outside the city, South El Montes is a real pit when you look at the data. Its residents have the 29th highest unemployment rate (6.63%), and poverty is far above the area average.
Determining The Worst Suburbs Around Long Beach for 2020
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 2014-2018, 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 Long Beach.
Additionally, we limited the analysis to places that have over 3,000 people. This left us with a grand total of 97 suburbs to evaluate around Long Beach.
We ranked each place with scores from 1 to 97 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 Long Beach." We're lookin' at you, Commerce. You can download the data here.
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.
The areas around Long Beach where the dream is more of a nightmare for 2020
Well there you have it -- the worst of the 'burbs surrounding Long Beach with Commerce casting itself ahead of the pack.
As we mentioned earlier, the suburbs around Long Beach aren't all bad. Hermosa Beach takes the cake as the best place to live around Long Beach.
- Hermosa Beach
- Manhattan Beach
- Redondo Beach
For more California reading, check out:
- These Are The 10 Best Places To Retire In California
- These Are The 10 Richest Cities In California
- 10 Safest Places In California
- 10 Worst Places To Live In California
Detailed List Of The Worst Long Beach Suburbs
| Rank | City | Population |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Commerce | 12,933 |
| 2 | Huntington Park | 58,694 |
| 3 | Maywood | 27,542 |
| 4 | Pomona | 152,494 |
| 5 | Bell Gardens | 42,641 |
| 6 | Compton | 97,301 |
| 7 | Cudahy | 24,016 |
| 8 | South Gate | 95,103 |
| 9 | Lynwood | 71,022 |
| 10 | South El Monte | 20,727 |
| 11 | Hawaiian Gardens | 14,411 |
| 12 | Bell | 35,809 |
| 13 | El Monte | 115,669 |
| 14 | Inglewood | 110,327 |
| 15 | Paramount | 54,776 |
| 16 | Azusa | 49,544 |
| 17 | Montebello | 63,099 |
| 18 | Midway | 3,301 |
| 19 | La Puente | 40,268 |
| 20 | Stanton | 38,509 |
| 21 | Los Angeles | 3,959,657 |
| 22 | Hawthorne | 87,370 |
| 23 | Santa Ana | 333,499 |
| 24 | Duarte | 21,713 |
| 25 | Baldwin Park | 76,222 |
| 26 | Anaheim | 349,668 |
| 27 | Rosemead | 54,417 |
| 28 | Bellflower | 77,529 |
| 29 | Carson | 92,517 |
| 30 | Gardena | 59,924 |
| 31 | Signal Hill | 11,538 |
| 32 | Norwalk | 105,886 |
| 33 | Temple | 4,366 |
| 34 | Pico Rivera | 63,432 |
| 35 | Santa Fe Springs | 17,791 |
| 36 | Lawndale | 33,007 |
| 37 | Glendale | 200,372 |
| 38 | La Habra | 61,910 |
| 39 | Garden Grove | 174,010 |
| 40 | Fullerton | 139,866 |
| 41 | San Gabriel | 40,242 |
| 42 | Westminster | 91,417 |
| 43 | Downey | 112,901 |
| 44 | West Covina | 107,242 |
| 45 | Artesia | 16,817 |
| 46 | Monterey Park | 60,792 |
| 47 | Covina | 48,403 |
| 48 | Monrovia | 37,006 |
| 49 | Buena Park | 82,781 |
| 50 | Glendora | 51,773 |
| 51 | Lomita | 20,628 |
| 52 | Alhambra | 84,974 |
| 53 | Laguna Woods | 16,228 |
| 54 | Burbank | 104,275 |
| 55 | Tustin | 80,140 |
| 56 | Orange | 139,873 |
| 57 | Costa Mesa | 113,198 |
| 58 | Whittier | 86,523 |
| 59 | Pasadena | 141,246 |
| 60 | La Mirada | 48,974 |
| 61 | Seal Beach | 24,364 |
| 62 | Los Alamitos | 11,628 |
| 63 | Chino Hills | 79,298 |
| 64 | Diamond Bar | 56,434 |
| 65 | Lakewood | 80,771 |
| 66 | Placentia | 52,049 |
| 67 | El Segundo | 16,850 |
| 68 | San Dimas | 34,239 |
| 69 | Lake Forest | 82,911 |
| 70 | Brea | 42,330 |
| 71 | Cerritos | 50,172 |
| 72 | Fountain Valley | 56,372 |
| 73 | West Hollywood | 36,384 |
| 74 | Irvine | 265,502 |
| 75 | Arcadia | 58,207 |
| 76 | Santa Monica | 92,078 |
| 77 | Sierra Madre | 11,006 |
| 78 | Laguna Beach | 23,147 |
| 79 | La Habra Heights | 5,383 |
| 80 | Walnut | 30,008 |
| 81 | Huntington Beach | 200,606 |
| 82 | Beverly Hills | 34,362 |
| 83 | Cypress | 48,955 |
| 84 | La Palma | 15,733 |
| 85 | Torrance | 146,392 |
| 86 | Villa Park | 5,912 |
| 87 | South Pasadena | 25,824 |
| 88 | Rolling Hills Estates | 8,187 |
| 89 | Aliso Viejo | 50,925 |
| 90 | Yorba Linda | 67,815 |
| 91 | Newport Beach | 86,280 |
| 92 | San Marino | 13,285 |
| 93 | Rancho Palos Verdes | 42,271 |
| 94 | Palos Verdes Estates | 13,523 |
| 95 | Redondo Beach | 67,700 |
| 96 | Manhattan Beach | 35,573 |
| 97 | Hermosa Beach | 19,650 |
