Find a neighborhood that feels like you.
Official planning neighborhood: East Boston
Published fit 66 uses default walkable weights and a $2,500 ACS rent budget — the same number as the Boston table. Your current weights score this 66.
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.
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.
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.
72 violent · 465 property · 13.4 per 1k (Oct 2025 – Sep 2026)+8 vs city set
Rating 6.2 / 10 nearby-19 vs city set
OSM: 66 groceries · 23 cafes · 130 transit · 92 parks+38 vs city set
$1,918 ACS median vs published $2,500 rent budget+2 vs city set
OSM: 23 cafes · 138 restaurants · 21 bars · 92 parks+24 vs city set
From East Boston, a typical weekday is 18 min to Downtown, 16 min to Seaport, 32 min to Longwood. Not live traffic.
Seaport is the fastest of these three job centers from here.
Downtown Crossing, Financial District · +2 min vs the city-set median
Innovation District, the waterfront · -3 min vs the city-set median · fastest of these three
Hospitals, medical offices · +14 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 $1,918 — 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 ($86K) could “afford” about $2,144 a month at 30% of pay.
71% of households rent. Median home value is $664,819.
ACS 5-year median gross rent for Boston city. Up 65% since 2014. East Boston is 11% 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: 66 groceries, 23 cafes, 92 parks, and 130 transit stops.
Daily errands and coffee are realistic on foot. Parks are close — 92 mapped parks in that radius. Transit is dense (130 stops or stations).
23 cafes and 138 restaurants make this one of the busier food pockets in the Boston set.
OpenStreetMap, 800 meters. Not a Walk Score license. More groceries than 19 of the other 19 areas in this city.
ACS 2024 5-year (2020-2024) · 12 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.
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. Jeffries Point is the search for the water.
The tunnel is the commute. Planes are the tax. Weight cost and the Seaport job. Charlestown is the other peninsula with a monument instead of a runway. Southie is the beach version of the same harbor.
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 East Boston.
Last 90 days, snapshot 2026-09-01. Method.
Straight answers from the numbers on this page.
East Boston is middle of the pack for Part I here (safety 58 vs city 50). BPD logged 1.8 violent and 11.6 property incidents per 1,000 residents — 13.4 combined. Visitors count in those numbers. This is not a judgment of who lives here.
ACS median rent is $1,918 — studios through large apartments mixed together. About 71% of households rent. Median home value is $664,819. Survey medians, not a listing you can message tonight.
Walk is 65 here vs 27 for the Boston set — some errands work on foot; some still need a ride. Inside 800 meters: 66 groceries, 23 cafes, 130 transit stops, 92 parks. Not a Walk Score license.
The scores lean family relative to this city set. Nearby school rating is 6.2 / 10. Median age is 35.2. That rating is not your assigned campus.
18 typical weekday minutes to Downtown. Not the app on your phone this hour. Other job centers are further down this page.
About 40,017 people. Median income $86K. 35% have a bachelor's or higher.
Charlestown, North End, West End sit closest on this map. If you are choosing between two official planning neighborhoods, start with East Boston vs Charlestown.
Closest on this schematic map, scored with the same published walkable weights as the Boston table. Distances here are not street geography.
East Boston vs CharlestownEast Boston vs North EndEast Boston vs West End
$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.
$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 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.
$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.