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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 Salem.
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 Salem 'burbs need a little tender loving care - the sore thumbs of the Salem area if you will. Realistically, you can't expect all the suburbs to live up to Salem proper, although Sublimity certainly tries.
Of course, not all suburbs of Salem are created equally, which is precisely why we set out to find the best ones..
We examined the 28 biggest suburbs of Salem to find out the worst places to live. And while you won't necessarily find them on the worst places to live in oregon lists, these ten places are a little too far downwind of Salem in terms of quality of life.
What's the worst suburb of Salem? Willamina ranks as the worst suburb of Salem for 2021 based on the most recent Census and FBI data.
Read on to see how we determined the places around Salem that need a pick-me-up. And remember, don't blame the messenger.
Or, if you're thinking of moving to elsewhere in oregon check out the best places in oregon overall or the worst.
And remember, there are some good places to live around Salem 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 Oregon reading, check out:
The 10 Worst Salem Suburbs To Live For 2021
Determining The Worst Suburbs Around Salem for 2021
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 2015-2019, 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 Salem.
Additionally, we limited the analysis to places that have over 2,000 people. This left us with a grand total of 28 suburbs to evaluate around Salem.
We ranked each place with scores from 1 to 28 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 Salem." We're lookin' at you, Willamina. 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 Salem where the dream is more of a nightmare for 2021
Well there you have it -- the worst of the 'burbs surrounding Salem with Willamina casting itself ahead of the pack.
As we mentioned earlier, the suburbs around Salem aren't all bad. Sublimity takes the cake as the best place to live around Salem.
- Sublimity
- Dundee
- Wilsonville
For more Oregon reading, check out:
- Best Places To Retire In Oregon
- Richest Cities In Oregon
- Safest Places In Oregon
- Worst Places To Live In Oregon
Detailed List Of The Worst Salem Suburbs
Rank | City | Population |
---|---|---|
1 | Willamina | 2,450 |
2 | Lebanon | 16,870 |
3 | Sheridan | 6,122 |
4 | Jefferson | 3,301 |
5 | Woodburn | 25,738 |
6 | Monmouth | 10,282 |
7 | Independence | 9,842 |
8 | Hubbard | 3,475 |
9 | Gervais | 2,713 |
10 | Albany | 53,521 |
11 | Aumsville | 4,099 |
12 | Mount Angel | 3,542 |
13 | Stayton | 8,130 |
14 | Mcminnville | 34,010 |
15 | Dallas | 16,168 |
16 | Newberg | 23,396 |
17 | Corvallis | 58,028 |
18 | Dayton | 2,668 |
19 | Molalla | 9,155 |
20 | Silverton | 10,242 |
21 | Carlton | 2,180 |
22 | Lafayette | 4,149 |
23 | Keizer | 38,980 |
24 | Canby | 17,695 |
25 | Turner | 2,494 |
26 | Wilsonville | 24,073 |
27 | Dundee | 3,234 |
28 | Sublimity | 2,810 |