The suburbs of St. Paul call to all types of people looking to escape city live. Some people would prefer to live in the cities and towns that surround St. Paul 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 St. Paul ‘burbs need a little tender loving care – the sore thumbs of the St. Paul area if you will. Realistically, you can’t expect all the suburbs to live up to St. Paul proper, although Deephaven certainly tries.
Of course, not all suburbs of St. Paul are created equally, which is precisely why we set out to find the best ones..
We examined the 100 biggest suburbs of St. Paul to find out the worst places to live. And while you won’t necessarily find them on the worst places to live in Minnesota lists, these ten places are a little too far downwind of St. Paul in terms of quality of life.
Here are the 10 worst suburbs around St. Paul for 2023:
What’s the worst suburb of St. Paul? Brooklyn Center ranks as the worst suburb of St. Paul for 2023 based on the most recent Census and FBI data.
Read on to see how we determined the places around St. Paul that need a pick-me-up. And remember, don’t blame the messenger.
Or, if you’re thinking of moving to elsewhere in Minnesota check out the best places in Minnesota overall or the worst.
And remember, there are some good places to live around St. Paul too.
Article Table Of Contents
For more Minnesota reading, check out:
- Best Places To Live In Minnesota
- Cheapest Places To Live In Minnesota
- Most Dangerous Cities In Minnesota
The 10 Worst St. Paul Suburbs To Live For 2023
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We’ll get the ball rolling with Brooklyn Center, the absolute worst place to live around St. Paul according to the data.
And in the world of worst rankings, Brooklyn Center beat the competition pretty handily thanks to scoring in the bottom 15% in three major categories. Income is the 7th worst in the St. Paul 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 Brooklyn Center.
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 Lexington. Home to KMart, Big Lots, and a lot of gas stations.
This city is 13.5 miles to St. Paul. Income levels here are the 15th lowest in the metro area, where families bring in about $69,318 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.
3. Somerset
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Population: 2,986
Rank Last Year: 3 (No Change)
Median Income: $67,267 (11th lowest)
Unemployment Rate: 4.4% (30th highest)
Median Home Value: $195,700 (lowest)
More on Somerset:
Back up the highway we go for the third worst St. Paul suburb you can live in. You might have expected to see Somerset 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 St. Paul suburbs.
But at least there are nice parks to bring the kids during the day.
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If you live in Fridley, most likely you struggle to make ends meet every month. It ranks as the 13th lowest St. Paul suburb when it comes to residents making money.
Not only that, but this is the 10th worst unemployed suburb you can live in if you choose to live near St. Paul. Remember, we looked at 100 cities for this study.
Fridley is about 12.1 miles to downtown.
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Population: 3,951
Rank Last Year: 4 (Down 1)
Median Income: $58,455 (3rd lowest)
Unemployment Rate: 3.1% (52nd highest)
Median Home Value: $246,000 (24th lowest)
More on Newport: Data
Newport has the distinction of being a St. Paul suburb. Which means that’s about all it has going for it.
All snarkiness aside, Newport has the 24th lowest home values in the metro St. Paul area, where the median price is $246,000. To put that into perspective, in Deephaven, the median income is $220,861, which is the best in the area.
Newport has an unemployment rate of 3.13% which ranks 52nd worst.
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South St. Paul has 20,637 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 10.484577211248421%.
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Population: 10,704
Rank Last Year: 9 (Up 2)
Median Income: $61,959 (5th lowest)
Unemployment Rate: 5.2% (15th highest)
Median Home Value: $247,200 (25th lowest)
More on Little Canada: Data
Ah, Little Canada. You rank as the 7th worst place to live around St. Paul.
It’s the place with the 15th most out of work residents in the St. Paul metro area (5.16%).
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West St. Paul is a city about 3.3 miles from St. Paul, but St. Paul 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. West St. Paul has the 19th most uninsured people, 2nd worst incomes, and has the 18th highest unemployment rate (5.1%) in the entire St. Paul metro area.
Homes only cost $232,400 for a reason. That’s cheap for St. Paul standards.
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If you absolutely have to live near St. Paul, then Columbia Heights might be a place for you to consider as it’s only the 9th worst St. Paul suburb.
About 3.87% of residents are out of work.
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Rounding out the ten worst St. Paul suburbs to call home is Minneapolis.
Located 8.1 miles outside the city, Minneapoliss is a real pit when you look at the data. Its residents have the 9th highest unemployment rate (5.62%), and poverty is far above the area average.
Methodology: Determining The Worst Suburbs Around St. Paul for 2023
To figure out how bad a St. Paul 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 St. Paul.
Additionally, we limited the analysis to places that have over 1,000 people. This left us with a grand total of 100 suburbs to evaluate around St. Paul.
We ranked each place with scores from 1 to 100 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 St. Paul.” We’re lookin’ at you, Brooklyn Center.
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 St. Paul where the dream is more of a nightmare for 2023
Well there you have it — the worst of the ‘burbs surrounding St. Paul with Brooklyn Center casting itself ahead of the pack.
As we mentioned earlier, the suburbs around St. Paul aren’t all bad. Deephaven takes the cake as the best place to live around St. Paul.
- Deephaven
- North Oaks
- North Hudson
For more Minnesota reading, check out:
- Best Places To Retire In Minnesota
- Richest Cities In Minnesota
- Safest Places In Minnesota
- Worst Places To Live In Minnesota
Detailed List Of The Worst St. Paul Suburbs
Rank | City | Population |
---|---|---|
1 | Brooklyn Center | 33,298 |
2 | Lexington | 2,071 |
3 | Somerset | 2,986 |
4 | Fridley | 29,422 |
5 | Newport | 3,951 |
6 | South St. Paul | 20,637 |
7 | Little Canada | 10,704 |
8 | West St. Paul | 20,476 |
9 | Columbia Heights | 21,612 |
10 | Minneapolis | 425,091 |
11 | Brooklyn Park | 85,247 |
12 | Spring Lake Park | 6,920 |
13 | New Hope | 21,683 |
14 | Robbinsdale | 14,522 |
15 | Richfield | 36,899 |
16 | Oakdale | 28,019 |
17 | Burnsville | 63,926 |
18 | Mounds View | 13,187 |
19 | Maplewood | 41,673 |
20 | Hopkins | 18,861 |
21 | Anoka | 17,749 |
22 | Bloomington | 89,436 |
23 | St. Paul Park | 5,490 |
24 | Coon Rapids | 63,269 |
25 | River Falls | 16,058 |
26 | Forest Lake | 20,366 |
27 | Osseo | 2,643 |
28 | Arden Hills | 9,868 |
29 | North St. Paul | 12,395 |
30 | Lauderdale | 2,479 |
31 | Vadnais Heights | 12,931 |
32 | Blaine | 68,999 |
33 | Roseville | 36,119 |
34 | Crystal | 23,143 |
35 | Shakopee | 43,396 |
36 | Inver Grove Heights | 35,539 |
37 | New Brighton | 23,293 |
38 | Bayport | 3,801 |
39 | White Bear Lake | 24,520 |
40 | Ramsey | 27,409 |
41 | Prescott | 4,348 |
42 | Spring Park | 1,921 |
43 | Circle Pines | 5,001 |
44 | Oak Park Heights | 4,720 |
45 | Apple Valley | 55,237 |
46 | Eagan | 68,205 |
47 | Falcon Heights | 5,388 |
48 | Hudson | 14,500 |
49 | Wyoming | 7,984 |
50 | Chaska | 27,461 |
51 | East Bethel | 11,818 |
52 | Hastings | 22,063 |
53 | Farmington | 23,253 |
54 | Savage | 32,092 |
55 | Champlin | 23,877 |
56 | Oak Grove | 8,870 |
57 | Dayton | 7,257 |
58 | Golden Valley | 22,247 |
59 | Columbus | 4,169 |
60 | Carver | 5,837 |
61 | Centerville | 3,899 |
62 | Corcoran | 6,317 |
63 | Maple Grove | 69,900 |
64 | St. Louis Park | 49,539 |
65 | Shoreview | 26,871 |
66 | Eden Prairie | 64,048 |
67 | Cottage Grove | 38,582 |
68 | Afton | 2,936 |
69 | Stillwater | 19,243 |
70 | Mound | 9,365 |
71 | Hugo | 15,541 |
72 | Minnetrista | 8,215 |
73 | Minnetonka | 53,809 |
74 | Excelsior | 2,389 |
75 | Chanhassen | 25,646 |
76 | Rosemount | 25,513 |
77 | Woodbury | 74,014 |
78 | Prior Lake | 27,242 |
79 | Elko New Market | 4,777 |
80 | Grant | 3,966 |
81 | Andover | 32,471 |
82 | Wayzata | 4,367 |
83 | Lino Lakes | 21,180 |
84 | Lakeville | 69,026 |
85 | Shorewood | 7,779 |
86 | St. Anthony | 9,145 |
87 | Lake Elmo | 11,237 |
88 | Ham Lake | 16,389 |
89 | Orono | 8,252 |
90 | Rogers | 13,182 |
91 | Edina | 53,059 |
92 | Scandia | 3,971 |
93 | Victoria | 10,361 |
94 | Plymouth | 80,034 |
95 | Mahtomedi | 8,041 |
96 | Mendota Heights | 11,681 |
97 | Medina | 6,654 |
98 | North Hudson | 3,814 |
99 | North Oaks | 5,204 |
100 | Deephaven | 3,878 |