Best PlacesLongview, WA Best Neighborhoods
2026–2027 edition · Data updated July 2026
Every neighborhood in the Longview metro, scored on 40 measures of daily life and ranked to fit what matters to you. This page is for people who live here or already know they want to. To work out which city fits you best, start with the best places to live tool.
Photo by khiara jones, via commons
Longview ranks 208th of 387 U.S. metro areas on the BestNeighborhood index. It does not top any single list, but it lands above the national middle on clean air and few empty homes. The weaker spots are state infrastructure, education levels, and childcare costs.
The best neighborhoods in the Longview 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 Longview
The towns and districts of the Longview 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.
Woodland & Kalama
Incomes run higher, local pay stretches further, and tree cover is thicker.
Silverlake
It is quieter, though biking is worse.
Downtown Longview
Streets are more walkable.
Castle Rock
Fewer homes sit empty, though fewer households have young kids.
Kelso
Commutes are shorter, though prices have run up more.
Scores across Longview run from about the 9th to the 82nd percentile nationally. The map is where that becomes a choice of area.
Longview's strengths and weaknesses
Longview lands in the middle because its strengths and weaknesses roughly balance. Clean air, few empty homes, and tree cover carry most of that.
The drawbacks are real but narrow. State infrastructure, education levels, and childcare costs hold the score down. The detail is below, and the map is where it turns into a choice of neighborhood rather than just a place.
Where Longview ranks high
- Air qualityBetter than 97% of metro areas
- Low vacancyBetter than 95% of metro areas
- Tree shadeBetter than 83% of metro areas
- Low income/sales/gas taxBetter than 82% of metro areas
- Crime safetyBetter than 80% of metro areas
Where Longview ranks low
- State infrastructureBetter than only 10% of metro areas
- Educational attainmentBetter than only 11% of metro areas
- Cheap childcare$1,375 a month, better than only 11% of metro areas
- Disaster safetyBetter than only 16% of metro areas
- Cell coverageBetter than only 16% of metro areas
What it costs to buy a home in Longview
A household needs to earn about $107,000 a year to comfortably buy the median Longview home, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate. That runs well above the area's median income of $83,110, so buying stretches a typical household.
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 Longview's effective rate of 0.83%, 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 Longview
Longview'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 Longview.
Who works in Longview, and how
Work in Longview centers on health care & social and manufacturing. Unemployment is close to the national rate, and jobs are growing.
Largest industries
How people get to work
- Drive or carpool 88%
- Work from home 9%
- Transit, walk, or bike 3%
Life in Longview
Longview has fewer places to eat and drink per resident than most metro areas and less parkland per resident than most metro areas. Dining, parks, and nightlife concentrates in some parts of Longview and thins out in others, which the map shows.
Is Longview growing, and who is moving in?
Longview has grown about 12% over the last decade. The largest inbound stream comes from Portland, OR.
Where new residents come from
Where people leaving Longview go
Move counts are the latest county-to-county migration flows, each county grouped into its metro.
What the weather is like in Longview, month by month
Longview sees roughly 87 pleasant days a year. July highs average about 82 degrees. January highs sit near 49, with lows near 35. The comfortable stretch runs May through September.
Show the monthly temperatures
| Month | Avg high | Avg | Avg low |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | 49° | 41° | 35° |
| April | 64° | 51° | 40° |
| July | 82° | 66° | 55° |
| October | 65° | 53° | 44° |
Flying in and out of Longview
Portland International sits about 43 miles away. It is a medium hub and boarded 9.1 million passengers in 2025, with 117 nonstop destinations.
Longview 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 Longview against the other 386 metro areas.
Who Longview suits
Families
Schools land around the 31st percentile and crime safety beats 80%.
Common questions about living in Longview
Is Longview a good place to live?
Using BestNeighborhood's default rankings, Longview ranks 208th of 387 metro areas. It scores highest on clean air, few empty homes, and tree cover, and lowest on state infrastructure and education levels. How good it is for you depends on which of those you weight most, which the map lets you set.
Is Longview expensive to live in?
The median home is worth $406,878. The overall cost of living runs about 1% above the national average. Set against a $83,110 median income, cost of living beats 27% of metro areas.
Is Longview safe?
Yes, Longview is safer than 80% of metro areas. Safety varies a lot by neighborhood. Crime costs an estimated $367 per resident a year.
What is the weather like in Longview?
July highs average about 82 degrees, and January highs near 49 with lows near 35. That works out to about 87 pleasant days a year, more than 50% of metro areas.
What are the best neighborhoods in Longview?
Using the default rankings, the highest-scoring areas are Woodland & Kalama, Silverlake, and Downtown Longview. The ranked list and the re-weightable map above let you re-sort them for your own priorities.
Is Longview good for families?
Schools beat 31% of metro areas, crime safety beats 80%, and childcare runs $1,375 a month.
Is Longview good for remote workers?
Cost of living against local pay beats 27% of metro areas, though advertised internet speeds beat only 19% of metro areas. About 9% of workers already work from home.
Compare Longview with other metro areas
Sources and methodology
Every measure on this page is scored for each neighborhood, then rolled up to Longview. Scores are absolute rather than ranked, which means a 60 in Longview 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.
Longview detail on BestNeighborhood maps:
- Walk Grade for Longview: walkability, transit, and biking, measured on the real street network rather than by straight line distance.
- Noise in Longview: road, rail, and aviation sound modeling calibrated against federal ground truth measurements.
- Conservative vs liberal map of Longview: precinct level election results apportioned to neighborhoods.
- Mobile and cell coverage in Longview: carrier by carrier coverage behind the cell score.
Longview 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.