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The Washington, DC list for people who will actually look at a school rating. Official neighborhood clusters only. Bars barely count.
School rating nearby gets the biggest say. Safety and rent still count; walk and nightlife barely do. That is why a pretty strip can lose to a quieter block with a weaker cafe count. The rating is not your assigned campus, and a number here does not travel to another city.
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Data period. ACS 2024 5-year (2020-2024) · MPD Sep 2025 – Aug 2026 · OSM Oct 2026. ACS and MPD retrieved 2026-10-01; OSM retrieved 2026-10-01. Editorial copy last revised Sep 2026.
Top 10 of 20 official neighborhood clusters. Same order for every reader. Fit is a number inside Washington, DC only.
| # | Neighborhood | Fit | Rent | Schools | Safety | Walk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Foggy Bottom | 71 | $2,479 | 50 | 100 | 40 |
| 2 | Logan Circle | 68 | $2,390 | 50 | 89 | 39 |
| 3 | Petworth | 66 | $1,730 | 50 | 63 | 70 |
| 4 | Capitol Hill | 66 | $2,341 | 50 | 84 | 38 |
| 5 | Glover Park | 64 | $2,200 | 50 | 95 | 16 |
| 6 | Southwest | 60 | $2,213 | 50 | 58 | 39 |
| 7 | Cleveland Park | 60 | $2,260 | 50 | 79 | 14 |
| 8 | Columbia Heights | 59 | $2,013 | 50 | 47 | 55 |
| 9 | Tenleytown | 59 | $2,413 | 50 | 74 | 12 |
| 10 | Downtown | 58 | $2,469 | 50 | 0 | 100 |
$2K ACS median rent
Cluster 5 is West End, Foggy Bottom, and GWU. The campus pulls the median age to 28.8, the youngest in this set. Property rate is the lowest here, 14.0 per 1,000. Georgetown is the hill west. Downtown is the Mall side — a different cluster.
Stuck between these two? Foggy Bottom vs Logan Circle
$2K ACS median rent
Cluster 7 is Shaw and Logan Circle. Search Shaw or U Street and you land here, not on the Howard cluster to the north. 14th Street is the strip; the side blocks are houses. Property rate is 21.4 per 1,000, quieter than Dupont’s visitor count. Dupont is west.
Stuck between these two? Logan Circle vs Petworth
$2K ACS median rent
Cluster 18 is Brightwood Park, Crestwood, and Petworth. More house than bar, and the ACS rent median is $1,730 — below the northwest clusters. Georgia Avenue is the spine. Columbia Heights is south.
Stuck between these two? Petworth vs Capitol Hill
$2K ACS median rent
Cluster 26 is Capitol Hill and Lincoln Park. Row houses, the park, and a violent rate of 1.6 per 1,000. Eastern Market is the errand people mean. Navy Yard is the new buildings south, its own cluster. The corridor north of here is Stanton Park.
Stuck between these two? Capitol Hill vs Glover Park
$2K ACS median rent
Cluster 14 is Cathedral Heights, McLean Gardens, and Glover Park. Wisconsin Avenue is the errand. Violent rate is 0.9 per 1,000. Georgetown is south; Tenleytown is north. It is not Georgetown.
Stuck between these two? Glover Park vs Southwest
$2K ACS median rent
Cluster 9 is Southwest Employment Area, Southwest/Waterfront, Fort McNair, and Buzzard Point. Search the Wharf and you land here. Waterfront apartments and a federal edge. The park count of 110 includes the Mall within 800 meters, not a hundred local parks. Navy Yard is the newer towers east, its own cluster.
Stuck between these two? Southwest vs Cleveland Park
$2K ACS median rent
Cluster 15 is Cleveland Park, Woodley Park, Massachusetts Avenue Heights, and Woodland-Normanstone Terrace. Search Woodley Park and you land here. Violent rate is the lowest in this set, 0.6 per 1,000. ACS home value is $1,270,906. Adams Morgan is the night south of here.
Stuck between these two? Cleveland Park vs Columbia Heights
$2K ACS median rent
Cluster 2 is Columbia Heights, Mt. Pleasant, Pleasant Plains, and Park View — one polygon, not four. It is the largest population in this set, 51,000. Search Mt. Pleasant and you still land here. Petworth is north.
Stuck between these two? Columbia Heights vs Tenleytown
$2K ACS median rent
Cluster 11 is Friendship Heights, American University Park, and Tenleytown. Search Friendship Heights or AU Park and you land here. Median age is 47, the oldest in this set, and ACS income is $239,075. About 28% of households rent. Cleveland Park is south.
Stuck between these two? Tenleytown vs Downtown
$2K ACS median rent
Cluster 8 is Downtown, Chinatown, Penn Quarters, Mount Vernon Square, and North Capitol Street. The GIS spelling is Penn Quarters. Property rate is the highest in this set, 75.4 per 1,000, and the park count of 140 includes the Mall and people who do not sleep here. That is visitors and civic land, not a score for every side street.
Same list, said in questions. The numbers are in the table.
Official Washington, DC neighborhood clusters ranked as if a nearby school rating and a calmer block matter more than bars. The rating is not your assigned campus. This is not the best place in the country to raise a child.
Foggy Bottom edges Logan Circle on the quieter map (safety 100 vs 89). Fit is 71 vs 68 — close enough that you should read both pages.
The walkable list cares about the shop and the bus. This one cares about the school rating first. A dense strip can win walkable and lose here. That is the point.
Adams Morgan is in the Washington, DC set and still sits outside the top 10. Schools 50, safety 53. It has more of the night, and this list barely pays for the night. Not a judgment of who lives there.
No. Hyde Park in Austin is not Hyde Park in Chicago. A 72 here is a rank inside this city’s official neighborhood clusters, not a grade you can carry across a state line.
ACS median gross rent among these 10 areas runs $1,730 to $2,479. Five-year survey, studios through large apartments mixed together — not a listing you can message tonight.
Everyone sees this order so the list is arguable. Set your own weights · Method.