Best PlacesFlint, MI Best Neighborhoods
2026–2027 edition · Data updated July 2026
Every neighborhood in the Flint metro, scored on 40 measures of daily life and ranked to fit what matters to you. The averages are not the whole story, and the strongest areas score well above them. To work out which city fits you best, start with the best places to live tool.
Photo by WeaponizingArchitecture, CC BY-SA 4.0, via commons
Flint ranks 360th of 387 U.S. metro areas on the BestNeighborhood index. It ranks low mainly on a weak job market and car insurance costs. It does better on civic engagement, which keeps it off the bottom.
The best neighborhoods in the Flint 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 Flint
The towns and districts of the Flint 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.
Grand Blanc
Local pay stretches further, incomes run higher, and more adults hold degrees.
Swartz Creek & Linden
Crime runs lower and fewer homes sit empty.
Fenton
It is noisier and fewer households have young kids.
Flushing, Clio & Montrose
Prices have run up less and tree cover is thicker.
Otisville & Thetford Center
Homes cost less, though biking is worse.
Davison & Burton
Scores close to Otisville & Thetford Center, except that streets are more walkable here.
Downtown Flint
Transit reaches more jobs, though schools score lower.
Mount Morris & Beecher
Health care is harder to reach and health outcomes score lower.
Flint shows why a single number is not enough. Some neighborhoods score in the bottom 1% of the country and others in the top 7%. Pick the area first, then the home.
Flint's strengths and weaknesses
Flint ranks near the bottom because several of the basics fall short at once. Civic engagement, low disaster risk, and heat safety carry most of that.
The weak spots are broad rather than narrow: a weak job market, car insurance costs, and crime all drag on the score. Those are area averages, and the map below shows which parts run well above them.
Where Flint ranks high
- Voter turnoutBetter than 93% of metro areas
- Disaster safetyBetter than 76% of metro areas
- Heat safetyBetter than 71% of metro areas
- Cheap childcare$745 a month, better than 70% of metro areas
- TransitBetter than 68% of metro areas
Where Flint ranks low
- Local economyBetter than only 2% of metro areas
- Cheap car insuranceBetter than only 2% of metro areas
- Crime safetyBetter than only 8% of metro areas
- School gradeC−, better than only 9% of metro areas
- Health outlookBetter than only 11% of metro areas
What it costs to buy a home in Flint
A household needs to earn about $52,000 a year to comfortably buy the median Flint home, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate. That is below the area's own median income of $69,631, 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 Flint's effective rate of 1.37%, and insurance is estimated at 0.4% of home value a year.
Renting versus buying
At today's prices, buying tends to cost more than renting for about the first 6 years, then pulls ahead as rent keeps rising and the mortgage builds equity. The chart tracks the running cost of each.
Who lives in Flint
Flint's age mix sits close to the national median.
Residents by age
Racial and ethnic makeup has its own map. See the race and diversity map for Flint.
Who works in Flint, and how
Work in Flint centers on manufacturing and health care & social. Unemployment sits above the national rate, and employment has held roughly flat.
Largest industries
How people get to work
- Drive or carpool 85%
- Work from home 10%
- Transit, walk, or bike 4%
Life in Flint
Flint has fewer places to eat and drink per resident than most metro areas and more parkland per resident than 73% of metro areas. Dining, parks, and nightlife concentrates in some parts of Flint and thins out in others, which the map shows.
Is Flint growing, and who is moving in?
Flint has lost about 3% of its population over the last decade. The largest inbound stream comes from Detroit, MI.
Where new residents come from
Where people leaving Flint go
Move counts are the latest county-to-county migration flows, each county grouped into its metro.
What the weather is like in Flint, month by month
Flint sees roughly 73 pleasant days a year. July highs average about 86 degrees. January highs sit near 34, with lows near 18. The comfortable stretch runs May through September.
Show the monthly temperatures
| Month | Avg high | Avg | Avg low |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | 34° | 26° | 18° |
| April | 61° | 47° | 35° |
| July | 86° | 73° | 60° |
| October | 65° | 53° | 42° |
Flying in and out of Flint
The nearest airport, Bishop International, is about 5 miles away and is a small airport. The nearest major hub is Detroit Metro Wayne County, about 59 miles away.
The best schools in and around Flint
Schools across Flint average a C−, better than 9% of metro areas.
Top elementary schools
- Ac Edgerton Elementary SchoolC+ · 38% proficient
- Brendel Elementary SchoolC · 35% proficient
- Seymour Elementary SchoolC− · 28% proficient
Top middle schools
- Flushing Middle SchoolC− · 30% proficient
- Grand Blanc Middle School WestC− · 29% proficient
- Clio Middle SchoolC− · 29% proficient
Top high schools
- Genesee Early CollegeB+ · 56% proficient
- Grand Blanc Community High SchoolC+ · 40% proficient
- Swartz Creek High SchoolC− · 27% proficient
Grades come from K-12 test scores, with scores projected for schools missing data. See every Flint school and its grade on SchoolGrade.
Flint 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 Flint against the other 386 metro areas.
Who Flint suits
Common questions about living in Flint
Is Flint a good place to live?
Using BestNeighborhood's default rankings, Flint ranks 360th of 387 metro areas. It scores highest on civic engagement, low disaster risk, and heat safety, and lowest on a weak job market and car insurance costs. How good it is for you depends on which of those you weight most, which the map lets you set.
Is Flint expensive to live in?
The median home is worth $182,822. The overall cost of living runs about 16% below the national average. Set against a $69,631 median income, cost of living beats 32% of metro areas.
Is Flint safe?
Flint is safer than 8% of metro areas. Safety varies a lot by neighborhood. Crime costs an estimated $563 per resident a year.
What is the weather like in Flint?
July highs average about 86 degrees, and January highs near 34 with lows near 18. That works out to about 73 pleasant days a year, more than 29% of metro areas.
What are the best neighborhoods in Flint?
Using the default rankings, the highest-scoring areas are Grand Blanc, Swartz Creek & Linden, and Fenton. The ranked list and the re-weightable map above let you re-sort them for your own priorities.
Is Flint good for families?
Schools beat 9% of metro areas, crime safety beats 8%, and childcare runs $745 a month.
Is Flint good for remote workers?
Cost of living against local pay beats 32% of metro areas, though advertised internet speeds beat only 20% of metro areas. About 10% of workers already work from home.
Compare Flint with other metro areas
Sources and methodology
Every measure on this page is scored for each neighborhood, then rolled up to Flint. Scores are absolute rather than ranked, which means a 60 in Flint 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.
Flint detail on BestNeighborhood maps:
- Walk Grade for Flint: walkability, transit, and biking, measured on the real street network rather than by straight line distance.
- Noise in Flint: road, rail, and aviation sound modeling calibrated against federal ground truth measurements.
- Conservative vs liberal map of Flint: precinct level election results apportioned to neighborhoods.
- Mobile and cell coverage in Flint: carrier by carrier coverage behind the cell score.
Flint 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.