Best PlacesPrairie Center, WA Best Neighborhoods
2026–2027 edition · Data updated July 2026
Every neighborhood in and around Prairie Center, 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.
Prairie Center ranks 3,464th of 50,333 U.S. towns on the BestNeighborhood index. It scores highest on clean air by a wide margin, and an overheated housing market is the weak spot.
The best neighborhoods in Prairie Center
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.
Prairie Center's strengths and weaknesses
Where Prairie Center ranks high
- Air qualityBetter than 98% of towns
- BikingBetter than 97% of towns
- Educational attainmentBetter than 95% of towns
- Voter turnoutBetter than 93% of towns
- Crime safetyBetter than 92% of towns
Where Prairie Center ranks low
- Housing crash safetyBetter than only 2% of towns
- Cheap childcare$1,516 a month, better than only 2% of towns
- State infrastructureBetter than only 13% of towns
- Disaster safetyBetter than only 20% of towns
- State fiscal healthBetter than only 36% of towns
What it costs to buy a home in Prairie Center
A household needs to earn about $176,000 a year to comfortably buy the median Prairie Center home, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate. That runs well above the area's median income of $107,404, 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 Prairie Center's effective rate of 0.67%, 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 Prairie Center
Prairie Center runs older than the country, and households here run smaller than average.
Residents by age
Racial and ethnic makeup has its own map. See the race and diversity map for Prairie Center.
Who works in Prairie Center, and how
Work in Prairie Center centers on professional & technical and health care & social. Unemployment is close to the national rate, and jobs are growing.
Largest industries
How people get to work
- Drive or carpool 76%
- Work from home 17%
- Transit, walk, or bike 7%
Life in Prairie Center
The coast is about 2 minutes away. Distance to the water changes a lot across Prairie Center, which the map shows.
What the weather is like in Prairie Center, month by month
Prairie Center sees roughly 112 pleasant days a year. July highs average about 69 degrees. January highs sit near 50, with lows near 36. The comfortable stretch runs June through September.
Show the monthly temperatures
| Month | Avg high | Avg | Avg low |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | 50° | 43° | 36° |
| April | 58° | 50° | 42° |
| July | 69° | 60° | 53° |
| October | 61° | 52° | 44° |
Flying in and out of Prairie Center
The nearest airport, Friday Harbor, is about 24 miles away and is a small airport. The nearest major hub is Seattle-Tacoma International, about 57 miles away.
Prairie Center 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 Prairie Center against the other 50,332 towns.
Common questions about living in Prairie Center
Is Prairie Center a good place to live?
Using BestNeighborhood's default rankings, Prairie Center ranks 3,464th of 50,333 towns. It scores highest on clean air, biking, and an educated workforce, and lowest on an overheated housing market and childcare costs. How good it is for you depends on which of those you weight most, which the map lets you set.
Is Prairie Center expensive to live in?
The median home is worth $683,419. The overall cost of living runs about 10% above the national average. Set against a $107,404 median income, cost of living beats 80% of towns.
Is Prairie Center safe?
Yes, Prairie Center is safer than 92% of towns. Safety varies a lot by neighborhood. Crime costs an estimated $230 per resident a year.
Compare Prairie Center with other towns
Sources and methodology
Every measure on this page is scored for each neighborhood, then rolled up to Prairie Center. Scores are absolute rather than ranked, which means a 60 in Prairie Center 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.
Prairie Center detail on BestNeighborhood maps:
- Walk Grade for Prairie Center: walkability, transit, and biking, measured on the real street network rather than by straight line distance.
- Noise in Prairie Center: road, rail, and aviation sound modeling calibrated against federal ground truth measurements.
- Conservative vs liberal map of Prairie Center: precinct level election results apportioned to neighborhoods.
- Mobile and cell coverage in Prairie Center: carrier by carrier coverage behind the cell score.
Prairie Center 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.