Best PlacesOuachita Parish, LA Best Neighborhoods
2026–2027 edition · Data updated July 2026
Every neighborhood in Ouachita Parish, 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.
Ouachita Parish ranks 2,517th of 3,144 U.S. counties on the BestNeighborhood index. It ranks low mainly on car insurance costs and state infrastructure. It does better on low property taxes, which keeps it off the bottom.
The best neighborhoods in Ouachita Parish
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 Ouachita Parish
The parts of Ouachita Parish, ranked by the BestNeighborhood standard score across every neighborhood, highest scoring first. Each note says how that part differs from the rest of the county.
West Monroe & Claiborne
More households have young kids, fewer homes sit empty, and local pay stretches further.
Calhoun
Schools score higher, though it is noisier.
Monroe
More adults hold degrees, though tree cover is thinner.
Brownsville
Crime runs lower, though incomes run lower.
Richwood
Health care is harder to reach and fewer residents vote.
Scores across Ouachita Parish run from about the 1st to the 85th percentile nationally. The map is where that becomes a choice of area.
Ouachita Parish's strengths and weaknesses
Ouachita Parish ranks near the bottom because several of the basics fall short at once. Low property taxes, fast internet, and cell coverage are the strongest pieces, though none of them is exceptional.
The weak spots are broad rather than narrow: car insurance costs, state infrastructure, and state finances all drag on the score. Those are area averages, and the map below shows which parts run well above them.
Where Ouachita Parish ranks high
- Low property taxBetter than 85% of counties
- Internet speedBetter than 78% of counties
- Cell coverageBetter than 76% of counties
- Disaster safetyBetter than 73% of counties
- Short commute22.1 minutes each way, better than 65% of counties
Where Ouachita Parish ranks low
- Cheap car insuranceBetter than only 1% of counties
- State infrastructureBetter than only 1% of counties
- State fiscal healthBetter than only 8% of counties
- Crime safetyBetter than only 16% of counties
- Heat safetyBetter than only 17% of counties
What it costs to buy a home in Ouachita Parish
A household needs to earn about $49,000 a year to comfortably buy the median Ouachita Parish home, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate. That is below the area's own median income of $62,645, 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 Ouachita Parish's effective rate of 0.47%, 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 Ouachita Parish
Ouachita Parish runs younger than the country.
Residents by age
Racial and ethnic makeup has its own map. See the race and diversity map for Ouachita Parish.
Who works in Ouachita Parish, and how
Work in Ouachita Parish centers on health care & social and retail trade. Unemployment sits above the national rate, and jobs are growing.
Largest industries
How people get to work
- Drive or carpool 85%
- Work from home 9%
- Transit, walk, or bike 6%
Life in Ouachita Parish
The map and measures below break down dining, culture, and green space by neighborhood across Ouachita Parish.
Is Ouachita Parish growing, and who is moving in?
Ouachita Parish has grown about 1% over the last decade. The largest inbound stream comes from the rest of the Monroe, LA metro.
Where new residents come from
Where people leaving Ouachita Parish go
Move counts are the latest county-to-county migration flows, each county grouped into its metro.
What the weather is like in Ouachita Parish, month by month
Ouachita Parish sees roughly 80 pleasant days a year. July highs average about 94 degrees. January highs sit near 59, with lows near 39. The comfortable stretch runs March through May, October, and November.
Show the monthly temperatures
| Month | Avg high | Avg | Avg low |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | 59° | 47° | 39° |
| April | 78° | 66° | 56° |
| July | 94° | 83° | 74° |
| October | 82° | 68° | 57° |
Flying in and out of Ouachita Parish
The nearest airport, Monroe Regional, is about 6 miles away and is a small airport. The nearest major hub is Louis Armstrong New Orleans International, about 206 miles away.
The best schools in and around Ouachita Parish
Schools across Ouachita Parish average a C, better than 30% of counties.
Top elementary schools
- Claiborne SchoolA · 63% proficient
- Sterlington Elementary SchoolA− · 56% proficient
- Drew Elementary SchoolB+ · 55% proficient
Top middle schools
- West Ridge Middle SchoolA− · 56% proficient
- Sterlington Middle SchoolB+ · 51% proficient
- Good Hope Middle SchoolB− · 42% proficient
Top high schools
- Choudrant High SchoolB+ · 57% proficient
- West Ouachita High SchoolC+ · 40% proficient
- Neville High SchoolC+ · 36% proficient
Grades come from K-12 test scores, with scores projected for schools missing data. See every Ouachita Parish school and its grade on SchoolGrade.
Ouachita Parish 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 Ouachita Parish against the other 3,143 counties.
Who Ouachita Parish suits
Remote workers
Internet is fast and widely advertised and 9% already work from home.
Retirees
Set weather, quiet, and health care weights on the map to test the fit.
Common questions about living in Ouachita Parish
Is Ouachita Parish a good place to live?
Using BestNeighborhood's default rankings, Ouachita Parish ranks 2,517th of 3,144 counties. It scores highest on low property taxes, fast internet, 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 Ouachita Parish expensive to live in?
The median home is worth $195,783. The overall cost of living runs about 17% below the national average. Set against a $62,645 median income, cost of living beats 38% of counties.
Is Ouachita Parish safe?
Ouachita Parish is safer than 16% of counties. Safety varies a lot by neighborhood. Crime costs an estimated $685 per resident a year.
What is the weather like in Ouachita Parish?
July highs average about 94 degrees, and January highs near 59 with lows near 39. That works out to about 80 pleasant days a year, more than 38% of counties.
What are the best neighborhoods in Ouachita Parish?
Using the default rankings, the highest-scoring areas are West Monroe & Claiborne, Calhoun, and Monroe. The ranked list and the re-weightable map above let you re-sort them for your own priorities.
Is Ouachita Parish good for families?
Schools beat 30% of counties, crime safety beats 16%, and childcare runs $723 a month.
Is Ouachita Parish good for remote workers?
Cost of living against local pay beats 38% of counties, and the fastest advertised internet here beats 78% of counties. About 9% of workers already work from home.
Compare Ouachita Parish with other counties
Sources and methodology
Every measure on this page is scored for each neighborhood, then rolled up to Ouachita Parish. Scores are absolute rather than ranked, which means a 60 in Ouachita Parish 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.
Ouachita Parish detail on BestNeighborhood maps:
- Walk Grade for Ouachita Parish: walkability, transit, and biking, measured on the real street network rather than by straight line distance.
- Noise in Ouachita Parish: road, rail, and aviation sound modeling calibrated against federal ground truth measurements.
- Conservative vs liberal map of Ouachita Parish: precinct level election results apportioned to neighborhoods.
- Mobile and cell coverage in Ouachita Parish: carrier by carrier coverage behind the cell score.
Ouachita Parish 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.