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Official planning neighborhood: Dorchester
Published fit 71 uses default walkable weights and a $2,500 ACS rent budget — the same number as the Boston table. Your current weights score this 71.
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.
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.
Best in Boston for familiesWalkable BostonUnder $2,500 rent
Default walkable weights, $2,500 ACS rent budget. Same axes as the city table and the FAQ.
537 violent · 2592 property · 24.7 per 1k (Oct 2025 – Sep 2026)-29 vs city set
Rating 5.8 / 10 nearby-34 vs city set
OSM: 24 groceries · 7 cafes · 431 transit · 120 parks+73 vs city set
$1,812 ACS median vs published $2,500 rent budget+2 vs city set
OSM: 7 cafes · 52 restaurants · 7 bars · 120 parks+13 vs city set
From Dorchester, a typical weekday is 22 min to Downtown, 20 min to Seaport, 26 min to Longwood. Not live traffic.
Seaport is the fastest of these three job centers from here.
Downtown Crossing, Financial District · +6 min vs the city-set median
Innovation District, the waterfront · +1 min vs the city-set median · fastest of these three
Hospitals, medical offices · +8 min vs the city-set median
Minutes are baked from neighborhood geography to three job centers — not Google, not this hour’s traffic.
The ACS median rent is $1,812 — every occupied rental mixed together, not the 1-bed in the window.
That is 27% of median household income — under the 30% HUD line. A household at this area’s median income ($80K) could “afford” about $2,004 a month at 30% of pay.
63% of households rent. Median home value is $660,954.
ACS 5-year median gross rent for Boston city. Up 65% since 2014. Dorchester is 16% below the 2024 city median.
Overlapping 5-year ACS windows (B25064), not asking rent. Census does not publish a rent series for each official neighborhood, so the line is the city place. The dashed mark is this area’s ACS 2024 median.
HUD treats 30% of income as the cost-burden line. We do not split ACS rent into 1-bed vs 2-bed. Method.
Within a short walk of this official planning neighborhood: 24 groceries, 7 cafes, 120 parks, and 431 transit stops.
Daily errands and coffee are realistic on foot. Parks are close — 120 mapped parks in that radius. Transit is dense (431 stops or stations).
7 cafes and 52 restaurants make this one of the busier food pockets in the Boston set.
OpenStreetMap, 800 meters. Not a Walk Score license. More groceries than 17 of the other 19 areas in this city.
ACS 2024 5-year (2020-2024) · 29 census tracts · BPD Oct 2025 – Sep 2026 · OSM 2026-09-10
Crime is BPD Part I reports per 1,000 ACS residents — not a judgment of who lives here. Home and rent figures are ACS medians, not live MLS. Read the method.
What it is like to live here, beyond the scores.
The largest official neighborhood in this Boston set. Dot Ave, Savin Hill, Fields Corner, Ashmont, and Adams Village are searches inside one BPDA line. A median here hides a lot of different 10 p.m.s. Do not treat the score as a block.
Red Line spine, more house than brick, more Caribbean and Vietnamese grocers than cafes on some stretches. Weight cost and transit. South Boston is the peninsula next door. Mattapan is the next T south. Roxbury is the inland neighbor.
Compiled from Zillow neighborhood guides, 5280 Magazine, Chicago and San Francisco resident guides, Mpls With Love, Eastside LA reporting, Seattle Times coverage, Boston planning-neighborhood writing, Philadelphia neighborhood writing, Portland neighborhood writing, and local writing, 2025–2026. Editorial — not part of the fit score.
Public posts from r/boston that mention this neighborhood. Not Nextdoor, not people on this block, and not part of the fit score.
No r/boston posts in this snapshot mentioned Dorchester.
Last 90 days, snapshot 2026-09-01. Method.
Straight answers from the numbers on this page.
Dorchester shows more Part I than most of this Boston set (safety 21 vs city 50). BPD logged 4.2 violent and 20.5 property incidents per 1,000 residents — 24.7 combined. Visitors count in those numbers. This is not a judgment of who lives here.
ACS median rent is $1,812 — studios through large apartments mixed together. About 63% of households rent. Median home value is $660,954. Survey medians, not a listing you can message tonight.
Walk is 100 here vs 27 for the Boston set — a grocery run and a coffee on foot are realistic. Inside 800 meters: 24 groceries, 7 cafes, 431 transit stops, 120 parks. Not a Walk Score license.
The scores lean family relative to this city set. Nearby school rating is 5.8 / 10. Median age is 36.2. That rating is not your assigned campus.
22 typical weekday minutes to Downtown. Not the app on your phone this hour. Other job centers are further down this page.
About 126,527 people. Median income $80K. 35% have a bachelor's or higher.
Roxbury, Mattapan, South Boston sit closest on this map. If you are choosing between two official planning neighborhoods, start with Dorchester vs Roxbury.
Closest on this schematic map, scored with the same published walkable weights as the Boston table. Distances here are not street geography.
Dorchester vs RoxburyDorchester vs MattapanDorchester vs South Boston
$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
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.
$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.
$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 southern T. More Caribbean grocers than cafes. Cost is the point relative to this Boston set. Weight family and budget, not a night out.