Find a neighborhood that feels like you.
Boston · MA · 20 planning neighborhoods
Compare official Boston planning neighborhoods on ACS rent, walk, safety, schools, and commute. Rankings stay inside this city.
Data period. ACS 2024 5-year (2020-2024) · BPD Oct 2025 – Sep 2026 · OSM Sep 2026. ACS and BPD retrieved 2026-09-10; OSM retrieved 2026-09-10. 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.
$2K ACS median rent
The largest official neighborhood in the set. Dot Ave, Savin Hill, Fields Corner, and Ashmont are searches inside one BPDA line. A median here hides a lot of different 10 p.m.s.
$2K ACS median rent
Eastie: the airport, the water taxi, and streets that still feel like a neighborhood that was not supposed to get this expensive. Maverick and Orient Heights are the T stops.
$2K ACS median rent
Downtown Crossing, the Common’s other edge, Chinatown and the Leather District as search terms. Walk maxes out. Part I is padded by people who do not sleep here.
$2K ACS median rent
Gas lamps, brick, and a hill that actually is a hill. Charles Street is the errand. The Common is the lawn. Quieter than Back Bay, tighter than it looks on a map.
$3K ACS median rent
Hanover Street is the postcard. The alleys are where people actually live. You will hear the tourists. You will also walk to a grocery if you picked the right block.
$2K ACS median rent
The western end of the same student river as Allston, with more two-families. Cleveland Circle and Oak Square are the searches. You will ride the B or C more than you walk downtown.
$1K ACS median rent
Dudley, Nubian Square, and a lot of city history in one official line. New infill sits next to older streets. Weight the numbers honestly; do not skip the page.
$2K ACS median rent
The most house-like official neighborhood in this Boston set. Centre Street, lawns, and a drive to almost every night that is not a pizza. Weight family and safety.
$3K ACS median rent
Newbury, the brownstones, the Public Garden. Bay Village is a search term that sits inside the same planning neighborhood. You pay for the postcard and for the visitors who shop it.
$2K ACS median rent
JP: the Pond, Centre Street, and the first stop for people who want a porch without leaving the city line. The Southwest Corridor is the spine.
$2K ACS median rent
Harvard Ave and Brighton Ave are the night. Students, late buses, and a rent that still undercuts Back Bay. Brookline is the next city over, not this official polygon.
$2K ACS median rent
The Navy Yard, the monument, and a peninsula that still feels slightly separate. The bridge is the commute. Family streets sit two blocks off the tourist path.
$2K ACS median rent
The park, the students, Kenmore, and Longwood as a search that actually sits next door. Game day is a tax. The rest of the week is apartments and hospitals.
$2K ACS median rent
Rozzie Square is the village. The Arnold Arboretum is the park you share with JP. More house than South End, less trip than West Roxbury.
$2K ACS median rent
The southern edge. More house than brick, more car than T. Readville and the river are the quieter searches. Downtown is a trip, not a walk.
$3K ACS median rent
Southie. Broadway is one 10 p.m.; the Seaport search is another, and the waterfront is its own BPDA polygon we fold here as an alias. The beach is real. The parking is also real.
$3K ACS median rent
MGH, the Garden, and towers that replaced a neighborhood. New rental, high median, and a walk to the river. You live here for the job and the T, not a main street.
$2K ACS median rent
SoWa, brownstones, and a grid that walks. Tremont and Washington are the strips. Quieter than Back Bay’s shopping, denser than JP.
$2K ACS median rent
The hill above the Longwood hospitals. Students, brick, and a walk to the Fens. Quieter than Fenway’s bars, tighter than JP’s porches.
$2K ACS median rent
The southern T. More Caribbean grocers than cafes. Cost is the point relative to this Boston set. Weight family and budget, not a night out.
Schematic planning-neighborhood map — the harbor on the right, the Charles across the north. Click a block to open it. Distances on this drawing are not street geography. Adjacent blocks are not a claim that two planning neighborhoods share a border.
ACS 5-year median gross rent for Boston city. Up 65% since 2014.
Overlapping 5-year ACS windows (B25064), not asking rent. Figures are for the city place, household-weighted across all occupied rental units.
Boston ranks BPDA planning neighborhoods, the city’s official named geography. The harbor sits east; the Charles runs across the north of the sketch. Southie and Eastie are searches, not extra official polygons.
JP, Southie, Eastie, Seaport, and Chinatown are aliases inside those planning neighborhoods. Nearby on this drawing is not a claim that two planning neighborhoods share a block.
Not a best-of list. Four cuts of the same 20 official planning neighborhoods.
Lower Part I rate
Fewer reports per 1,000 in this city set
Published fit uses default walkable weights and a $2,500 ACS rent budget. Same order for every reader. Fit is a number inside Boston only.
| # | Neighborhood | Published fit | ACS median rent | Walk index | Safety index |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dorchester | 71 | $1,812 | 100 | 21 |
| 2 | East Boston | 66 | $1,918 | 65 | 58 |
| 3 | Downtown | 63 | $2,448 | 62 | 5 |
| 4 | Beacon Hill | 60 | $2,492 | 34 | 42 |
| 5 | North End | 56 | $2,728 | 25 | 95 |
| 6 | Brighton | 51 | $2,238 | 26 | 79 |
| 7 | Roxbury | 50 | $1,278 | 50 | 16 |
| 8 | West Roxbury | 50 | $1,941 | 19 | 84 |
| 9 | Back Bay | 46 | $2,853 | 26 | 0 |
| 10 | Jamaica Plain | 46 | $2,128 | 23 | 37 |
| 11 | Allston | 45 | $2,471 | 16 | 74 |
| 12 | Charlestown | 44 | $1,943 | 4 | 89 |
| 13 | Fenway | 43 | $2,241 | 19 | 47 |
| 14 | Roslindale | 43 | $2,057 | 5 | 100 |
| 15 | Hyde Park | 42 | $2,033 | 20 | 63 |
| 16 | South Boston | 39 | $2,628 | 18 | 26 |
| 17 | West End | 38 | $3,346 | 22 | 32 |
| 18 | South End | 35 | $2,274 | 6 | 11 |
| 19 | Mission Hill | 34 | $1,785 | 0 | 68 |
| 20 | Mattapan | 28 | $1,700 | 0 | 53 |
ACS median gross rent mixes every occupied rental. Walk is an in-house OSM count, not Walk Score. Safety ranks Part I rates inside Boston only.
Rent figures are ACS 5-year median gross rent (2020-2024, ACS 2024 5-year) mixed across unit sizes in Suffolk County. Roxbury is the lowest median in this set at $1,278. 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 BPD Part I rates (Oct 2025 – Sep 2026) inside this Boston set only. A lower index means fewer Part I reports per 1,000 ACS residents relative to the other planning neighborhoods 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 Boston Planning Department (BPDA) neighborhood boundaries. Crime counts are Boston Police Department Crime Incident Reports 2023–Present (Analyze Boston).
ACS and BPD were retrieved 2026-09-10. OSM was retrieved 2026-09-10. 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 Boston number is built — not a grade of the place.
Boston ranks BPDA planning neighborhoods, the city’s official named geography. The harbor sits east; the Charles runs across the north of the sketch. Southie and Eastie are searches, not extra official polygons.
Roxbury has the lowest ACS 5-year median gross rent in this set at $1,278 (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 neighborhood or within 800 meters of its centroid. Dorchester currently leads the default walkable ranking. It is not a Walk Score® license.
Official planning neighborhoods only — 20 on this map. JP, Southie, Eastie, Seaport, and Chinatown are aliases on BPDA planning neighborhoods. The schematic map is for clicking, not for measuring a shared border.
Housing is ACS 2024 5-year (2020-2024). Crime is BPD Part I for Oct 2025 – Sep 2026. OSM amenities were snapshotted 2026-09-10. Editorial copy on these pages was last revised Sep 2026.
No. A number here is a rank inside these 20 official planning neighborhoods, not a grade you can carry to another city.
Six axes — safety, schools, walk, cost, vibe, and optional commute — scaled only inside Boston, then weighted. With default walkable weights and a $2,500 ACS rent budget, Dorchester is the current top match (71 published fit). Rankings never jump a city line. The formula is on the method page.
Full formula on the method page.