Best PlacesNorth Druid Hills, GA Best Neighborhoods

2026–2027 edition · Data updated July 2026

Every neighborhood in and around North Druid Hills, 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.

See the map of best neighborhoods

North Druid Hills ranks 5,418th of 50,333 U.S. towns on the BestNeighborhood index. It scores highest on population health by a wide margin, and noise is the weak spot.

#5,418
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 North Druid Hills

Map of the best neighborhoods in the North Druid Hills area, with better matches in green and worse matches in red
Click the map to explore
National median
Worse match Better match
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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.

North Druid Hills' strengths and weaknesses

Top 1%Population health
Top 1%An educated workforce
Top 3%Transit
Each measure against the national median. Bars to the right beat the median; bars to the left fall short. Percentiles compare North Druid Hills with other towns.

Where North Druid Hills ranks high

  • Health outlookBetter than 99% of towns
  • Educational attainmentBetter than 99% of towns
  • TransitBetter than 99% of towns
  • BikingBetter than 98% of towns
  • WalkabilityBetter than 96% of towns

Where North Druid Hills ranks low

  • QuietBetter than only 7% of towns
  • Crime safetyBetter than only 8% of towns
  • Air qualityBetter than only 12% of towns
  • Nice weatherabout 65 pleasant days a year, better than only 17% of towns
  • Cheap car insuranceBetter than only 17% of towns

What it costs to buy a home in North Druid Hills

A household needs to earn about $148,000 a year to comfortably buy the median North Druid Hills home, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate. That runs well above the area's median income of $114,613, so buying stretches a typical household.

Income to buy the median home
$148,000
a year, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate
Estimated monthly payment
$3,448
principal, interest, tax, and insurance on a $558,488 home
Median rent
$1,917
a month, across all home sizes

Where the monthly payment goes

Principal & interest$2,848
Property tax$415
Homeowners insurance$186

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 North Druid Hills' 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.

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

Who lives in North Druid Hills

North Druid Hills runs younger than the country, and households here run smaller than average.

Median age
35
younger than the U.S. median of 41
Residents 65 and older
12%
versus 18% nationally
Average household
2.2
below the U.S. average of 2.6

Residents by age

Under 1816%
18 to 3435%
35 to 4921%
50 to 6416%
65 and older12%

Racial and ethnic makeup has its own map. See the race and diversity map for North Druid Hills.


Who works in North Druid Hills, and how

Work in North Druid Hills centers on professional & technical and education. Unemployment is low, and employment has held roughly flat.

Work from home
30%
above the national average
Unemployment
0.1%
below the national average
Job growth
+0.4%
/y 2019-2023, slower than the national pace

Largest industries

Professional & technical21%
Education14%
Health care & social13%
Hospitality & food6%
Retail trade6%

How people get to work

  • Drive or carpool 59%
  • Work from home 30%
  • Transit, walk, or bike 11%

Life in North Druid Hills

North Druid Hills has more restaurants and bars per resident than 76% of towns and more parkland per resident than 80% of towns. Dining, parks, and nightlife concentrates in some parts of North Druid Hills and thins out in others, which the map shows.

Places to eat and drink
87
restaurants, bars, and fast food, about 46.0 per 10,000 residents, more than 76% of towns
Coffee shops
18
about 9.5 per 10,000 residents, more than 88% of towns
Parkland
51 acres
about 2.7 acres per 1,000 residents, more than 80% of towns
Open past 10pm
~28
food and drink venues open late, about 14.9 per 10,000 residents, more than 82% of towns

What the weather is like in North Druid Hills, month by month

North Druid Hills sees roughly 65 pleasant days a year. July highs average about 92 degrees. January highs sit near 56, with lows near 32. The comfortable stretch runs March through May, September, and October.

Average daily high, mean, and low in degrees Fahrenheit, NOAA station data 2016 to 2025.
Show the monthly temperatures
MonthAvg highAvgAvg low
January56°43°32°
April76°62°48°
July92°79°70°
October77°63°51°

Flying in and out of North Druid Hills

Hartsfield/Jackson Atlanta International sits about 14 miles away. It is a large hub and boarded 51.5 million passengers in 2025, with 278 nonstop destinations.

Nearest airport
ATL
Hartsfield/Jackson Atlanta International, about 14 miles
Airport size
Large hub
1st-busiest in the US, 278 nonstop destinations
Average drive
20 min
from the area, with no traffic

The best schools in and around North Druid Hills

Schools across North Druid Hills average a C−, better than 24% 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 North Druid Hills school and its grade on SchoolGrade.


North Druid Hills 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 North Druid Hills against the other 50,332 towns.


Common questions about living in North Druid Hills

Is North Druid Hills a good place to live?

Using BestNeighborhood's default rankings, North Druid Hills ranks 5,418th of 50,333 towns. It scores highest on population health, an educated workforce, and transit, and lowest on noise and crime. How good it is for you depends on which of those you weight most, which the map lets you set.

Is North Druid Hills expensive to live in?

The median home is worth $558,488. The overall cost of living runs about 7% below the national average. Set against a $114,613 median income, cost of living beats 95% of towns.

Is North Druid Hills safe?

North Druid Hills is safer than 8% of towns. Safety varies a lot by neighborhood. Crime costs an estimated $548 per resident a year.


Compare North Druid Hills with other towns


Sources and methodology

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

North Druid Hills detail on BestNeighborhood maps:

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

North Druid Hills 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.