73fit
#1Downtown
$3K ACS median rent
Rainey, Sixth, and the warehouse blocks live here. Highest walk score, highest nightlife, and a crime rate inflated by visitors.
- Walk index
- 100
- Safety index
- 0
- Published fit
- 73
Nightlife
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Austin · TX · 20 Neighborhood Planning Areas
Compare official Austin Neighborhood Planning Areas on ACS rent, walk, safety, schools, and commute. Rankings stay inside this city.
Data period. ACS 2024 5-year (2020-2024) · APD Sep 2025 – Aug 2026 · OSM Aug 2026. ACS and APD retrieved 2026-08-31; OSM retrieved 2026-08-31. Editorial copy last revised Sep 2026.
Published walkable weights — same order as the table below. Fit is an in-house score, not a resident review.
$3K ACS median rent
Rainey, Sixth, and the warehouse blocks live here. Highest walk score, highest nightlife, and a crime rate inflated by visitors.
$2K ACS median rent
Bungalows between Crestview and Hyde Park. Slightly more cafes than Allandale, slightly less polish than Rosedale.
$2K ACS median rent
North-central lawns and a quieter night. You will drive more; you will hear less.
$2K ACS median rent
Park first, houses second. Barton Springs and the trail set the pace; prices follow the shade.
$2K ACS median rent
North central, Red Line adjacent, with a younger mix than Allandale next door.
$2K ACS median rent
East of I-35, north of Cesar Chavez. Rapid change, strong food, mixed housing, and a walk to downtown.
$2K ACS median rent
Streetcar bungalows, porches, and a grocery you can walk to. The classic first stop for people who want central without downtown noise.
$2K ACS median rent
West of South Congress: cottages, food trailers, and the SoCo strip on the doorstep.
$1K ACS median rent
Medical-center adjacent, walkable groceries, and a calmer read than Hyde Park on a Saturday night.
$2K ACS median rent
Hills west of Zilker. Quiet streets, trail access, and a car for most errands.
$2K ACS median rent
A planned town on the old airport: alleys, a lake loop, and a grocery at the center. Newer bones, family default.
$2K ACS median rent
Vintage shops and renters just north of Hyde Park. Smaller lots, louder weekends.
$2K ACS median rent
Travis Heights oaks on the east side of Congress. Porches, hills, and a walk to the lake.
$2K ACS median rent
The Domain lives here: offices, apartments, and a mall you can pretend is a downtown. Car-first around the edges.
$3K ACS median rent
Clarksville cottages west of downtown. Close to the lake trail, quieter than Rainey, priced like it.
$2K ACS median rent
Between campus and Hyde Park. Golf course, student spillover, and a short walk to the Forty Acres.
$2K ACS median rent
The corridor south of the river: retail, apartments, and a faster pulse than Barton Hills.
$3K ACS median rent
East of the highway, still close enough to walk downtown. Music, murals, and a nightlife score that is not subtle.
$2K ACS median rent
Northeast of Mueller. More house for the money, fewer cafes, a straight shot down Airport Blvd.
$2K ACS median rent
Further east, still in the city. More yard, fewer bars, a value contrast to Cesar Chavez.
Schematic planning-area map — I-35 down the center, the lake across downtown. Click a block to open it. Distances on this drawing are not street geography. Adjacent blocks are not a claim that two Neighborhood Planning Areas share a border.
ACS 5-year median gross rent for Austin city. Up 71% since 2014.
Overlapping 5-year ACS windows (B25064), not asking rent. Figures are for the city place, household-weighted across all occupied rental units.
Austin’s official units here are Neighborhood Planning Areas, not listing nicknames. I-35 is the usual east–west split people argue about. The lake and UT sit in the middle of the map, and downtown’s Part I count is padded by visitors on Sixth and Rainey.
SoCo, Rainey, and The Domain are search names that land inside these planning areas — they are not extra polygons. A schematic map on this page is for clicking, not for measuring a shared border.
Not a best-of list. Four cuts of the same 20 official Neighborhood Planning Areas.
Published fit uses default walkable weights and a $2,500 ACS rent budget. Same order for every reader. Fit is a number inside Austin only.
| # | Neighborhood | Published fit | ACS median rent | Walk index | Safety index |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Downtown | 73 | $2,714 | 100 | 0 |
| 2 | Brentwood | 48 | $1,662 | 19 | 89 |
| 3 | Allandale | 47 | $1,741 | 10 | 100 |
| 4 | Zilker | 46 | $2,175 | 9 | 74 |
| 5 | Crestview | 46 | $1,921 | 13 | 95 |
| 6 | Central East Austin | 45 | $2,472 | 29 | 58 |
| 7 | Hyde Park | 44 | $1,681 | 9 | 84 |
| 8 | Bouldin Creek | 43 | $1,915 | 28 | 21 |
| 9 | Rosedale | 42 | $1,469 | 4 | 68 |
| 10 | Barton Hills | 42 | $1,820 | 5 | 63 |
| 11 | Mueller | 41 | $2,015 | 20 | 5 |
| 12 | North Loop | 39 | $1,681 | 6 | 84 |
| 13 | South River City | 37 | $1,894 | 9 | 32 |
| 14 | North Burnet | 37 | $1,904 | 21 | 11 |
| 15 | Old West Austin | 36 | $2,590 | 0 | 53 |
| 16 | Hancock | 36 | $1,572 | 9 | 47 |
| 17 | South Lamar | 35 | $1,686 | 11 | 42 |
| 18 | East Cesar Chavez | 33 | $2,907 | 20 | 16 |
| 19 | Windsor Park | 33 | $1,614 | 14 | 37 |
| 20 | Govalle | 31 | $1,650 | 16 | 26 |
ACS median gross rent mixes every occupied rental. Walk is an in-house OSM count, not Walk Score. Safety ranks Part I rates inside Austin only.
Rent figures are ACS 5-year median gross rent (2020-2024, ACS 2024 5-year) mixed across unit sizes in Travis County. Rosedale is the lowest median in this set at $1,469. That is a survey median, not this week’s asking rent for a one-bedroom.
Walk is an in-house index from OpenStreetMap groceries, cafes, parks, and transit stops inside the official polygon or within 800 meters of its centroid. It is not a Walk Score® license.
Safety ranks APD Part I rates (Sep 2025 – Aug 2026) inside this Austin set only. A lower index means fewer Part I reports per 1,000 ACS residents relative to the other Neighborhood Planning Areas here — not a guarantee that a block is safe, and not a measurement of noise.
A nearby school rating is not an assigned campus. Missing ratings sit at the middle of the scale.
Commute minutes are typical weekday estimates to named job centers, not live traffic.
Boundaries are City of Austin Neighborhood Planning Areas (inrm-c3ee). Crime counts are City of Austin Crime Reports (fdj4-gpfu).
ACS and APD were retrieved 2026-08-31. OSM was retrieved 2026-08-31. Editorial pages on this site were last revised Sep 2026.
Sources: U.S. Census American Community Survey, OpenStreetMap, and this city’s police open data via the method page. NabeWise is published by NabeWise Media.
How the Austin number is built — not a grade of the place.
Austin’s official units here are Neighborhood Planning Areas, not listing nicknames. I-35 is the usual east–west split people argue about. The lake and UT sit in the middle of the map, and downtown’s Part I count is padded by visitors on Sixth and Rainey.
Rosedale has the lowest ACS 5-year median gross rent in this set at $1,469 (2020-2024 survey). A median mixes every occupied rental. It is not this week’s one-bedroom.
Mapped groceries, cafes, parks, and transit stops inside the official planning area or within 800 meters of its centroid. Downtown currently leads the default walkable ranking. It is not a Walk Score® license.
Official Neighborhood Planning Areas only — 20 on this map. SoCo, Rainey, and The Domain are aliases on official planning areas. They do not get their own rows. The schematic map is for clicking, not for measuring a shared border.
Housing is ACS 2024 5-year (2020-2024). Crime is APD Part I for Sep 2025 – Aug 2026. OSM amenities were snapshotted 2026-08-31. Editorial copy on these pages was last revised Sep 2026.
No. A number here is a rank inside these 20 official Neighborhood Planning Areas, not a grade you can carry to another city.
Six axes — safety, schools, walk, cost, vibe, and optional commute — scaled only inside Austin, then weighted. With default walkable weights and a $2,500 ACS rent budget, Downtown is the current top match (73 published fit). Rankings never jump a city line. The formula is on the method page.
Full formula on the method page.