Best PlacesGolden Meadow, LA Best Neighborhoods

2026–2027 edition · Data updated July 2026

Every neighborhood in and around Golden Meadow, scored on 40 measures of daily life and ranked to fit what matters to you. The coast is close, and the measures below put a number on how close. To work out which city fits you best, start with the best places to live tool.

See the map of best neighborhoods

Golden Meadow ranks 39,377th of 50,333 U.S. towns on the BestNeighborhood index. It scores highest on a stable housing market by a wide margin, and car insurance costs are the weak spot.

#39,377
of 50,333 towns
BestNeighborhood rank
Defaults weight crime safety, affordability, schools, and weather highest: the things hardest to change after a move
N/A
of 50,333 towns
Your rank
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The best neighborhoods in Golden Meadow

Map of the best neighborhoods in the Golden Meadow area, with better matches in green and worse matches in red
Click the map to explore
National median
Worse match Better match
Colorblind friendly off
Popular priorities:

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.

Golden Meadow's strengths and weaknesses

Top 3%A stable housing market
Top 5%Low property taxes
Top 5%Cell coverage
Each measure against the national median. Bars to the right beat the median; bars to the left fall short. Percentiles compare Golden Meadow with other towns.

Where Golden Meadow ranks high

  • Housing crash safetyBetter than 98% of towns
  • Low property taxBetter than 97% of towns
  • Cell coverageBetter than 96% of towns
  • WalkabilityBetter than 90% of towns
  • Local economyBetter than 82% of towns

Where Golden Meadow ranks low

  • Cheap car insuranceBetter than only 1% of towns
  • State infrastructureBetter than only 1% of towns
  • Disaster safetyBetter than only 1% of towns
  • State fiscal healthBetter than only 10% of towns
  • Educational attainmentBetter than only 10% of towns

What it costs to buy a home in Golden Meadow

A household needs to earn about $33,000 a year to comfortably buy the median Golden Meadow home, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate. That is below the area's own median income of $68,520, so a typical household can afford the median home outright.

Income to buy the median home
$33,000
a year, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate
Estimated monthly payment
$765
principal, interest, tax, and insurance on a $135,563 home
Median rent
$722
a month, across all home sizes

Where the monthly payment goes

Principal & interest$691
Property tax$29
Homeowners insurance$45

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 Golden Meadow's effective rate of 0.25%, 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.

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

Who lives in Golden Meadow

Golden Meadow runs older than the country.

Median age
44
older than the U.S. median of 41
Residents 65 and older
18%
versus 18% nationally
Average household
2.5
near the U.S. average of 2.6

Residents by age

Under 1818%
18 to 3421%
35 to 4920%
50 to 6423%
65 and older18%

Racial and ethnic makeup has its own map. See the race and diversity map for Golden Meadow.


Who works in Golden Meadow, and how

Work in Golden Meadow centers on retail trade and education. Unemployment is low, and jobs are growing.

Work from home
2%
below the national average
Unemployment
1.5%
below the national average
Job growth
+8.3%
/y 2019-2023, faster than the national pace

Largest industries

Retail trade20%
Education11%
Manufacturing10%
Construction10%
Mining & oil & gas8%

How people get to work

  • Drive or carpool 92%
  • Work from home 2%
  • Transit, walk, or bike 6%

Life in Golden Meadow

The coast is about 30 minutes away. Distance to the water changes a lot across Golden Meadow, which the map shows.

To the coast
30 min
drive to the nearest ocean beaches

What the weather is like in Golden Meadow, month by month

Golden Meadow sees roughly 123 pleasant days a year. July highs average about 91 degrees. January highs sit near 65, with lows near 48. The comfortable stretch runs October through April.

Average daily high, mean, and low in degrees Fahrenheit, NOAA station data 2016 to 2025.
Show the monthly temperatures
MonthAvg highAvgAvg low
January65°55°48°
April78°70°62°
July91°82°75°
October82°72°64°

Flying in and out of Golden Meadow

Louis Armstrong New Orleans International sits about 42 miles away. It is a medium hub and boarded 6.2 million passengers in 2025, with 112 nonstop destinations.

Nearest airport
MSY
Louis Armstrong New Orleans International, about 42 miles
Airport size
Medium hub
39th-busiest in the US, 112 nonstop destinations
Average drive
60 min
from the area, with no traffic

The best schools in and around Golden Meadow

Schools across Golden Meadow average a C+, better than 41% of towns.

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 Golden Meadow school and its grade on SchoolGrade.


Golden Meadow 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 Golden Meadow against the other 50,332 towns.


Common questions about living in Golden Meadow

Is Golden Meadow a good place to live?

Using BestNeighborhood's default rankings, Golden Meadow ranks 39,377th of 50,333 towns. It scores highest on a stable housing market, low property taxes, and cell coverage, and lowest on car insurance costs and state infrastructure. How good it is for you depends on which of those you weight most, which the map lets you set.

Is Golden Meadow expensive to live in?

The median home is worth $135,563. The overall cost of living runs about 22% below the national average. Set against a $68,520 median income, cost of living beats 61% of towns.

Is Golden Meadow safe?

Golden Meadow is safer than 12% of towns. Safety varies a lot by neighborhood. Crime costs an estimated $660 per resident a year.


Compare Golden Meadow with other towns


Sources and methodology

Every measure on this page is scored for each neighborhood, then rolled up to Golden Meadow. Scores are absolute rather than ranked, which means a 60 in Golden Meadow 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.

Golden Meadow detail on BestNeighborhood maps:

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

Golden Meadow 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.