Best PlacesFargo, ND Best Neighborhoods
2026–2027 edition · Data updated July 2026
Every neighborhood in the Fargo metro, scored on 40 measures of daily life and ranked to fit what matters to you. Costs and crime read low across the board, which puts the choice down to which part suits you. To work out which city fits you best, start with the best places to live tool.
Photo by Ron Reiring, CC BY 2.0, via commons
Fargo ranks 26th of 387 U.S. metro areas on the BestNeighborhood index. It earns the spot by being affordable and steady rather than flashy: everyday costs run well below the national average, and crime is low. The trade is tree cover: the nearest large city and its jobs, flights, and culture are a drive away.
The best neighborhoods in the Fargo metro
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.
The best areas in Fargo
The towns and districts of the Fargo metro, ranked by the BestNeighborhood standard score across every neighborhood in each, highest scoring first. Each note says how that part differs from the rest of the metro.
Horace
More households have young kids, local pay stretches further, and incomes run higher.
Downtown Fargo
Biking is better, though disaster risk is higher.
Barnesville
More residents vote, though streets are more car-dependent.
Casselton
Commutes are longer and it is noisier.
Moorhead
Scores close to Casselton, except that fewer homes sit empty here.
West Fargo
Homes cost less, though crime runs higher.
Scores across Fargo run from about the 16th to the 99th percentile nationally. The map is where that becomes a choice of area.
Fargo's strengths and weaknesses
Fargo ranks where it does because the parts of life that are hardest to change mostly work here. Biking is the standout, in the top 2% of metro areas. Short commutes and a stable housing market follow.
The drawbacks are real but narrow. Tree cover, noise, and distance from a big city hold the score down. The measures below break that down, and the map shows how much of it holds street by street.
Where Fargo ranks high
- BikingBetter than 98% of metro areas
- Short commute17.7 minutes each way, better than 97% of metro areas
- Housing crash safetyBetter than 93% of metro areas
- Health outlookBetter than 93% of metro areas
- Heat safetyBetter than 93% of metro areas
Where Fargo ranks low
- Tree shadeBetter than only 10% of metro areas
- QuietBetter than only 12% of metro areas
- Big-city accessBetter than only 26% of metro areas
- Internet speedBetter than only 27% of metro areas
- Disaster safetyBetter than only 27% of metro areas
What it costs to buy a home in Fargo
A household needs to earn about $83,000 a year to comfortably buy the median Fargo home, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate. That is below the area's own median income of $87,166, so a typical household can afford the median home outright.
Where the monthly payment goes
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 Fargo's effective rate of 1.14%, 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.
Who lives in Fargo
Fargo runs younger than the country, and households here run smaller than average.
Residents by age
Racial and ethnic makeup has its own map. See the race and diversity map for Fargo.
Who works in Fargo, and how
Work in Fargo centers on health care & social and retail trade. Unemployment is low, and jobs are growing.
Largest industries
How people get to work
- Drive or carpool 83%
- Work from home 11%
- Transit, walk, or bike 6%
Life in Fargo
Fargo has more restaurants and bars per resident than 83% of metro areas and more parkland per resident than 81% of metro areas. Dining, parks, and nightlife concentrates in some parts of Fargo and thins out in others, which the map shows.
Is Fargo growing, and who is moving in?
Fargo has grown about 18% over the last decade. The largest inbound stream comes from Minneapolis, MN.
Where new residents come from
Where people leaving Fargo go
Move counts are the latest county-to-county migration flows, each county grouped into its metro.
What the weather is like in Fargo, month by month
Fargo sees roughly 124 pleasant days a year. July highs average about 85 degrees. January highs sit near 22, with lows near 3. The comfortable stretch runs May through September.
Show the monthly temperatures
| Month | Avg high | Avg | Avg low |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | 22° | 12° | 3° |
| April | 54° | 41° | 30° |
| July | 85° | 73° | 59° |
| October | 60° | 46° | 35° |
Flying in and out of Fargo
The nearest airport, Hector International, is about 5 miles away and is a small airport. The nearest major hub is Minneapolis-St Paul International/Wold-Chamberlain, about 220 miles away.
The best schools in and around Fargo
Schools across Fargo average a B−, better than 55% of metro areas.
Top elementary schools
- Kindred Elementary SchoolA · 62% proficient
- Longfellow Elementary SchoolA− · 62% proficient
- Bennett Elementary SchoolA− · 61% proficient
Top middle schools
- Discovery Middle SchoolA− · 56% proficient
- Ben Franklin Middle SchoolB+ · 51% proficient
- Central Cass Middle SchoolB+ · 48% proficient
Top high schools
- Kindred High SchoolA− · 65% proficient
- North High SchoolB+ · 56% proficient
- Moorhead High SchoolB · 50% proficient
Grades come from K-12 test scores, with scores projected for schools missing data. See every Fargo school and its grade on SchoolGrade.
Fargo 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 Fargo against the other 386 metro areas.
Who Fargo suits
Remote workers
Cost of living against local pay beats 80% of metro areas and 11% already work from home.
Retirees
The weather beats 76% of metro areas and health care access beats 85%.
Common questions about living in Fargo
Is Fargo a good place to live?
Using BestNeighborhood's default rankings, Fargo ranks 26th of 387 metro areas. It scores highest on biking, short commutes, and a stable housing market, and lowest on tree cover and noise. How good it is for you depends on which of those you weight most, which the map lets you set.
Is Fargo expensive to live in?
The median home is worth $302,772. The overall cost of living runs about 10% below the national average. Set against a $87,166 median income, cost of living beats 80% of metro areas.
Is Fargo safe?
Yes, Fargo is safer than 83% of metro areas. Safety varies a lot by neighborhood. Crime costs an estimated $325 per resident a year.
What is the weather like in Fargo?
July highs average about 85 degrees, and January highs near 22 with lows near 3. That works out to about 124 pleasant days a year, more than 76% of metro areas.
What are the best neighborhoods in Fargo?
Using the default rankings, the highest-scoring areas are Horace, Downtown Fargo, and Barnesville. The ranked list and the re-weightable map above let you re-sort them for your own priorities.
Is Fargo good for families?
Schools beat 55% of metro areas, crime safety beats 83%, and childcare runs $948 a month.
Is Fargo good for remote workers?
Cost of living against local pay beats 80% of metro areas, though advertised internet speeds beat only 27% of metro areas. About 11% of workers already work from home.
Compare Fargo with other metro areas
Sources and methodology
Every measure on this page is scored for each neighborhood, then rolled up to Fargo. Scores are absolute rather than ranked, which means a 60 in Fargo 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.
Fargo detail on BestNeighborhood maps:
- Walk Grade for Fargo: walkability, transit, and biking, measured on the real street network rather than by straight line distance.
- Noise in Fargo: road, rail, and aviation sound modeling calibrated against federal ground truth measurements.
- Conservative vs liberal map of Fargo: precinct level election results apportioned to neighborhoods.
- Mobile and cell coverage in Fargo: carrier by carrier coverage behind the cell score.
Fargo detail on related sites:
- CrimeGrade: neighborhood crime rates behind the crime safety score.
- ISPreports.org: provider by provider internet availability and advertised speeds.
- CoverageWatch: the car insurance premiums behind the cheap car insurance score.
Federal and public data:
- 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.
- U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program: population growth and net migration behind the population-change section.
- NOAA Global Surface Summary of the Day: the daily station record behind the monthly temperatures and the pleasant-day count.
- FAA Passenger Boarding Data: airport size and annual passenger counts.
- Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey: the 30-year fixed rate used in the cost-to-buy estimate.
- FBI Crime Data Explorer: reported offenses behind the tangible crime cost estimate.
- U.S. EPA Air Quality System: five year average air quality index.
- FEMA National Risk Index: expected annual loss from natural hazards.
- CDC PLACES: disease burden, preventable risk, and barriers to care.
- National Center for Education Statistics: school enrollment and assessment inputs behind the school grade.
- FCC National Broadband Map: internet and wireless availability.
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: employment and job growth behind the local economy score.
- Religious activity uses a proprietary religious signal measurement.
Your priorities
Move a slider to say how much a measure matters. Zero turns it off.