Best PlacesLake St. Croix Beach, MN Best Neighborhoods
2026–2027 edition · Data updated July 2026
Every neighborhood in and around Lake St. Croix Beach, scored on 40 measures of daily life and ranked to fit what matters to you. Local pay runs high here, and housing takes the biggest bite out of it. To work out which city fits you best, start with the best places to live tool.
Lake St. Croix Beach ranks 1,840th of 50,333 U.S. towns on the BestNeighborhood index. It scores highest on low crime by a wide margin, and childcare costs are the weak spot.
The best neighborhoods in Lake St. Croix Beach
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.
Lake St. Croix Beach's strengths and weaknesses
Where Lake St. Croix Beach ranks high
- Crime safetyBetter than 99% of towns
- Healthcare accessBetter than 95% of towns
- BikingBetter than 95% of towns
- Educational attainmentBetter than 94% of towns
- State infrastructureBetter than 93% of towns
Where Lake St. Croix Beach ranks low
- Cheap childcare$1,682 a month, better than only 1% of towns
- Low income/sales/gas taxBetter than only 20% of towns
- QuietBetter than only 24% of towns
- Housing crash safetyBetter than only 35% of towns
- Low property taxBetter than only 39% of towns
What it costs to buy a home in Lake St. Croix Beach
A household needs to earn about $103,000 a year to comfortably buy the median Lake St. Croix Beach home, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate. That is below the area's own median income of $103,833, 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 Lake St. Croix Beach's effective rate of 0.89%, 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 Lake St. Croix Beach
Lake St. Croix Beach runs older than the country.
Residents by age
Racial and ethnic makeup has its own map. See the race and diversity map for Lake St. Croix Beach.
Who works in Lake St. Croix Beach, and how
Work in Lake St. Croix Beach centers on health care & social and professional & technical. Unemployment is low, and jobs are growing.
Largest industries
How people get to work
- Drive or carpool 86%
- Work from home 11%
- Transit, walk, or bike 3%
Life in Lake St. Croix Beach
Lake St. Croix Beach has more restaurants and bars per resident than 98% of towns. That concentrates in some parts of Lake St. Croix Beach and thins out in others, which the map shows.
What the weather is like in Lake St. Croix Beach, month by month
Lake St. Croix Beach sees roughly 80 pleasant days a year. July highs average about 84 degrees. January highs sit near 26, with lows near 13. The comfortable stretch runs May through September.
Show the monthly temperatures
| Month | Avg high | Avg | Avg low |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | 26° | 19° | 13° |
| April | 56° | 45° | 37° |
| July | 84° | 74° | 65° |
| October | 60° | 50° | 43° |
Flying in and out of Lake St. Croix Beach
Minneapolis-St Paul International/Wold-Chamberlain sits about 22 miles away. It is a large hub and boarded 17.5 million passengers in 2025, with 195 nonstop destinations.
The best schools in and around Lake St. Croix Beach
Schools across Lake St. Croix Beach average a B+, better than 77% of towns.
Top elementary schools
- Afton-lakeland ElementaryB · 50% proficient
Top middle schools
- Oak-land Middle SchoolB · 44% proficient
Top high schools
- Stillwater Area High SchoolA− · 64% proficient
Grades come from K-12 test scores, with scores projected for schools missing data. See every Lake St. Croix Beach school and its grade on SchoolGrade.
Lake St. Croix Beach 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 Lake St. Croix Beach against the other 50,332 towns.
Common questions about living in Lake St. Croix Beach
Is Lake St. Croix Beach a good place to live?
Using BestNeighborhood's default rankings, Lake St. Croix Beach ranks 1,840th of 50,333 towns. It scores highest on low crime, health care access, and biking, and lowest on childcare costs and taxes. How good it is for you depends on which of those you weight most, which the map lets you set.
Is Lake St. Croix Beach expensive to live in?
The median home is worth $388,500. The overall cost of living runs about 9% below the national average. Set against a $103,833 median income, cost of living beats 92% of towns.
Is Lake St. Croix Beach safe?
Yes, Lake St. Croix Beach is safer than 99% of towns. Safety varies a lot by neighborhood. Crime costs an estimated $127 per resident a year.
Compare Lake St. Croix Beach with other towns
Sources and methodology
Every measure on this page is scored for each neighborhood, then rolled up to Lake St. Croix Beach. Scores are absolute rather than ranked, which means a 60 in Lake St. Croix Beach 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.
Lake St. Croix Beach detail on BestNeighborhood maps:
- Walk Grade for Lake St. Croix Beach: walkability, transit, and biking, measured on the real street network rather than by straight line distance.
- Noise in Lake St. Croix Beach: road, rail, and aviation sound modeling calibrated against federal ground truth measurements.
- Conservative vs liberal map of Lake St. Croix Beach: precinct level election results apportioned to neighborhoods.
- Mobile and cell coverage in Lake St. Croix Beach: carrier by carrier coverage behind the cell score.
Lake St. Croix Beach 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.
- 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.