The most affordable cities to live in (and why the West did the worst)

Getty

Support truly
independent journalism

Support Now

Wisconsin doesn’t just have cheese curds and craft beers: it’s also home to the most affordable city in America.

MarketWatch, a financial and business news site, analyzed 223 of the country’s largest cities to determine the top 10 most affordable cities.

Green Bay, Wisconsin – the state’s third largest city located 120 miles north of Milwaukee – topped the list. With a median monthly rent of $870, grocery costs 15 per cent lower than the national average, and a median home price of $245,000, the medium-sized city proved the least inexpensive.

Groceries in Green Bay cost 15 per cent less than the average — so more cash left over for tickets to a Packers game (The City of Green Bay)

The midwest dominated the rankings, taking six of the top 10 spots, while the south took three and the northeast just one.

Most affordable cities	Median Home Price	Groceries vs. National Avg.
1. Green Bay, WI	$245,000	−15.0%
2. Wichita, KS	$210,000	−7.7%
3. Rapid City, SD	$300,000	−7.4%
4. Springfield, IL	$139,000	−8.1%
5. Broken Arrow, OK	$293,000	−5.8%
6. Jackson, MS	$120,000	−7.6%
7. Alexandria, LA	$64,000	−1.3%
8. Iowa City, IA	$300,000	−11.1%
9. Manchester, NH (Tie)	$385,000	−10.1%
9. Sioux City, IA (Tie)	$202,000	−9.9%

The west did comparatively poorly, with the highest-ranking western city – Ogden, Utah – coming in at 18.

The ranking was calculated from seven metrics: median household income, unemployment rate, median home sale price, median monthly rate, grocery cost of living index, transportation cost of living index, and miscellaneous goods and services cost of living index. The report assigned each city a score from 0 to 100, with the latter being the most affordable score.

Wichita is the largest city in Kansas (Getty)

In second place was another midwestern city: Wichita, Kansas. Nuzzled in the south-central part of the state, Wichita is known as the air capital of the world and birthed fast food chains like Pizza Hut and White Castle. Its low average monthly rent of $971 and low-cost transportation, including gas prices and public transport options, gave the city its number two ranking.

“Prospective home buyers in Wichita can also appreciate the low median home sales price, which was $210,000 as of March 2023,” the report wrote.

A panorama view of South Dakota’s Rapid City, located just down the road from Mount Rushmore (Getty)

Rapid City, South Dakota rounded out the top three, with the lowest county unemployment rate in the country, at 1.5 per cent, and a median household income of $81,183. Known as the “City of Presidents”, with life-sized bronze statues of every U.S. president scattered throughout the city, it is located just 23 miles from Mount Rushmore.

Springfield, Ilinois, grabbed the fourth spot on the list, the highest of any state capital (Getty)

Only two capital cities made the top ten list. Springfield, Illinois – which nabbed fourth place – is located in the center of the state and is known as the home to Abrahm Lincoln’s tomb. The median cost of a home there is just $139,000.

Main Street in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, an affordable town in Tulsa County (Doncow/Flickr/CC BY-SA 2.0)

Rounding out the top five was Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, a manufacturing city which had the highest median income across the top ten cities, at $102,700.

And the other capital city in the top ten is Jackson, Mississippi, which landed in sixth place. The state’s most populous city was named after former U.S. President Andrew Jackson.

For those suffering with New York City or Bay Area property marketes, the report found that the average rent in 22 of the 223 cities analyzed was less than $1,000 a month.