Best PlacesBenton Park, St. Louis, MO Best Neighborhoods

2026–2027 edition · Data updated July 2026

Every neighborhood in and around Benton Park, St. Louis, scored on 40 measures of daily life and ranked to fit what matters to you. Several measures below read low, and the ranked lists name which ones. To work out which city fits you best, start with the best places to live tool.

See the map of best neighborhoods

Benton Park, St. Louis ranks 3,242nd of 5,983 U.S. neighborhoods on the BestNeighborhood index. It scores highest on short commutes by a wide margin, and the schools rank lowest.

#3,242
of 5,983 neighborhoods
BestNeighborhood rank
Defaults weight crime safety, affordability, schools, and weather highest: the things hardest to change after a move
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of 5,983 neighborhoods
Your rank
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The best neighborhoods in Benton Park, St. Louis

Map of the best neighborhoods in the Benton Park, St. Louis area, with better matches in green and worse matches in red
Click the map to explore
National median
Worse match Better match
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BestNeighborhood is the only ranking that scores 40 measures of daily life neighborhood by neighborhood and lets you re-weight every one of them yourself.

Benton Park, St. Louis' strengths and weaknesses

Top 10%Short commutes
Top 10%What local pay buys
Each measure against the national median. Bars to the right beat the median; bars to the left fall short. Percentiles compare Benton Park, St. Louis with other neighborhoods.

Where Benton Park, St. Louis ranks high

  • Short commute17.6 minutes each way, better than 91% of neighborhoods
  • Cost of living vs incomeBetter than 90% of neighborhoods
  • Educational attainmentBetter than 84% of neighborhoods
  • State fiscal healthBetter than 81% of neighborhoods
  • WalkabilityBetter than 77% of neighborhoods

Where Benton Park, St. Louis ranks low

  • School gradeF, better than only 1% of neighborhoods
  • QuietBetter than only 3% of neighborhoods
  • Crime safetyBetter than only 7% of neighborhoods
  • Nice weatherabout 64 pleasant days a year, better than only 15% of neighborhoods
  • Low vacancyBetter than only 19% of neighborhoods

What it costs to buy a home in Benton Park, St. Louis

A household needs to earn about $86,000 a year to comfortably buy the median Benton Park, St. Louis home, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate. That is below the area's own median income of $98,415, so a typical household can afford the median home outright.

Income to buy the median home
$86,000
a year, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate
Estimated monthly payment
$1,995
principal, interest, tax, and insurance on a $319,897 home
Median rent
$1,047
a month, across all home sizes

Where the monthly payment goes

Principal & interest$1,631
Property tax$258
Homeowners insurance$107

Assumes a 20% down payment, a 6.6% 30-year fixed rate, and a 28% share of income going to the payment. The rate is the 2026-07-23 30-year fixed average, series MORTGAGE30US from the St. Louis Fed, which publishes Freddie Mac's weekly survey. Against the median home value, property tax uses Benton Park, St. Louis' effective rate of 0.97%, and insurance is estimated at 0.4% of home value a year.

Renting versus buying

At today's prices and rents, renting stays cheaper than buying across the first 10 years here, so the case for buying rests on staying much longer or on prices rising faster than assumed. The chart tracks the running cost of each.

Cumulative cost of renting versus owning the median home, first 10 years. Illustrative estimate.

Who lives in Benton Park, St. Louis

Benton Park, St. Louis runs younger than the country, and households here run smaller than average.

Median age
36
younger than the U.S. median of 41
Residents 65 and older
12%
versus 18% nationally
Average household
2.0
below the U.S. average of 2.6

Residents by age

Under 1817%
18 to 3430%
35 to 4924%
50 to 6418%
65 and older12%

Racial and ethnic makeup has its own map. See the race and diversity map for Benton Park, St. Louis.


Who works in Benton Park, St. Louis, and how

Work in Benton Park, St. Louis centers on professional & technical and manufacturing. Unemployment sits above the national rate, and employment has held roughly flat.

Work from home
20%
above the national average
Unemployment
6.3%
above the national average
Job growth
−1.1%
/y 2019-2023, slower than the national pace

Largest industries

Professional & technical18%
Manufacturing14%
Health care & social12%
Other services9%
Education9%

How people get to work

  • Drive or carpool 71%
  • Work from home 20%
  • Transit, walk, or bike 9%

Life in Benton Park, St. Louis

Benton Park, St. Louis has more restaurants and bars per resident than 81% of neighborhoods. That concentrates in some parts of Benton Park, St. Louis and thins out in others, which the map shows.

Places to eat and drink
38
restaurants, bars, and fast food, about 105.6 per 10,000 residents, more than 81% of neighborhoods
Coffee shops
5
about 13.9 per 10,000 residents, more than 83% of neighborhoods

What the weather is like in Benton Park, St. Louis, month by month

Benton Park, St. Louis sees roughly 64 pleasant days a year. July highs average about 90 degrees. January highs sit near 42, with lows near 26. The comfortable stretch runs April, May, September, and October.

Average daily high, mean, and low in degrees Fahrenheit, NOAA station data 2016 to 2025.
Show the monthly temperatures
MonthAvg highAvgAvg low
January42°33°26°
April70°57°46°
July90°80°70°
October72°59°48°

Flying in and out of Benton Park, St. Louis

St Louis Lambert International sits about 13 miles away. It is a medium hub and boarded 7.5 million passengers in 2025, with 114 nonstop destinations.

Nearest airport
STL
St Louis Lambert International, about 13 miles
Airport size
Medium hub
35th-busiest in the US, 114 nonstop destinations
Average drive
19 min
from the area, with no traffic

The best schools in and around Benton Park, St. Louis

Schools across Benton Park, St. Louis average an F, better than 1% of neighborhoods.

Top elementary schools

Top middle schools

Top high schools

Grades come from K-12 test scores, with scores projected for schools missing data. See every Benton Park, St. Louis school and its grade on SchoolGrade.


Benton Park, St. Louis measure by measure

Cards are ordered by how much each measure matters to you, so the ones you weighted highest come first. Expand to see every measure. Percentages compare Benton Park, St. Louis against the other 5,982 neighborhoods.


Common questions about living in Benton Park, St. Louis

Is Benton Park, St. Louis a good place to live?

Using BestNeighborhood's default rankings, Benton Park, St. Louis ranks 3,242nd of 5,983 neighborhoods. It scores highest on short commutes, what local pay buys, and an educated workforce, and lowest on the schools and noise. How good it is for you depends on which of those you weight most, which the map lets you set.

Is Benton Park, St. Louis expensive to live in?

The median home is worth $319,897. The overall cost of living runs about 21% below the national average. Set against a $98,415 median income, cost of living beats 90% of neighborhoods.

Is Benton Park, St. Louis safe?

Benton Park, St. Louis is safer than 7% of neighborhoods. Safety varies a lot by neighborhood. Crime costs an estimated $1,119 per resident a year.


Compare Benton Park, St. Louis with other neighborhoods


Sources and methodology

Every measure on this page is scored for each neighborhood, then rolled up to Benton Park, St. Louis. Scores are absolute rather than ranked, which means a 60 in Benton Park, St. Louis represents the same real quantity as a 60 anywhere else, and the ranking is a weighted average of those absolutes. The map colors come from a national scale calibrated against a population weighted random sample of 5,000 neighborhoods. That absolute scoring is what no other places-to-live ranking does: it puts a single neighborhood, a town, a metro, and a state on one scale, so the same 40 measures answer both which metro to move to and which street inside it to buy on. Read the full methodology.

Benton Park, St. Louis detail on BestNeighborhood maps:

  1. Walk Grade for Benton Park, St. Louis: walkability, transit, and biking, measured on the real street network rather than by straight line distance.
  2. Noise in Benton Park, St. Louis: road, rail, and aviation sound modeling calibrated against federal ground truth measurements.
  3. Conservative vs liberal map of Benton Park, St. Louis: precinct level election results apportioned to neighborhoods.
  4. Mobile and cell coverage in Benton Park, St. Louis: carrier by carrier coverage behind the cell score.

Benton Park, St. Louis detail on related sites:

  1. CrimeGrade: neighborhood crime rates behind the crime safety score.
  2. ISPreports.org: provider by provider internet availability and advertised speeds.
  3. CoverageWatch: the car insurance premiums behind the cheap car insurance score.

Federal and public data:

  1. U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey: income, home value, rent, vacancy, commute time and mode, educational attainment, home age, age structure, household type, industry, and race.
  2. NOAA Global Surface Summary of the Day: the daily station record behind the monthly temperatures and the pleasant-day count.
  3. FAA Passenger Boarding Data: airport size and annual passenger counts.
  4. Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey: the 30-year fixed rate used in the cost-to-buy estimate.
  5. FBI Crime Data Explorer: reported offenses behind the tangible crime cost estimate.
  6. U.S. EPA Air Quality System: five year average air quality index.
  7. FEMA National Risk Index: expected annual loss from natural hazards.
  8. CDC PLACES: disease burden, preventable risk, and barriers to care.
  9. National Center for Education Statistics: school enrollment and assessment inputs behind the school grade.
  10. FCC National Broadband Map: internet and wireless availability.
  11. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: employment and job growth behind the local economy score.
  12. Religious activity uses a proprietary religious signal measurement.