Best PlacesSantan, AZ Best Neighborhoods

2026–2027 edition · Data updated July 2026

Every neighborhood in and around Santan, scored on 40 measures of daily life and ranked to fit what matters to you. Several measures below read low, and the ranked lists name which ones. To work out which city fits you best, start with the best places to live tool.

See the map of best neighborhoods

Santan ranks 47,649th of 50,333 U.S. towns on the BestNeighborhood index. It scores highest on the weather by a wide margin, and thin health care access ranks lowest.

#47,649
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
Set your priorities to see your rank

The best neighborhoods in Santan

Map of the best neighborhoods in the Santan area, with better matches in green and worse matches in red
Click the map to explore
National median
Worse match Better match
Colorblind friendly off
Popular priorities:

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.

Santan's strengths and weaknesses

Top 1%The weather
Each measure against the national median. Bars to the right beat the median; bars to the left fall short. Percentiles compare Santan with other towns.

Where Santan ranks high

  • Nice weatherabout 203 pleasant days a year, better than 99% of towns
  • Cell coverageBetter than 88% of towns
  • Big-city accessBetter than 88% of towns
  • Low property taxBetter than 76% of towns
  • Low income/sales/gas taxBetter than 76% of towns

Where Santan ranks low

  • Healthcare accessBetter than only 1% of towns
  • Educational attainmentBetter than only 1% of towns
  • Air qualityBetter than only 1% of towns
  • Tree shadeBetter than only 2% of towns
  • Cost of living vs incomeBetter than only 3% of towns

What it costs to buy a home in Santan

A household needs to earn about $95,000 a year to comfortably buy the median Santan home, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate. That runs well above the area's median income of $37,626, so buying stretches a typical household.

Income to buy the median home
$95,000
a year, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate
Estimated monthly payment
$2,206
principal, interest, tax, and insurance on a $376,900 home
Median rent
$506
a month, across all home sizes

Where the monthly payment goes

Principal & interest$1,922
Property tax$159
Homeowners insurance$126

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 Santan's effective rate of 0.51%, 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 Santan

Santan runs younger than the country, and households here run larger than average.

Median age
31
younger than the U.S. median of 41
Residents 65 and older
10%
versus 18% nationally
Average household
4.2
above the U.S. average of 2.6

Residents by age

Under 1827%
18 to 3428%
35 to 4920%
50 to 6414%
65 and older10%

Racial and ethnic makeup has its own map. See the race and diversity map for Santan.


Who works in Santan, and how

Work in Santan centers on hospitality & food and health care & social. Unemployment runs well above the national rate, and jobs are growing.

Work from home
1%
below the national average
Unemployment
21.5%
above the national average
Job growth
+36.9%
/y 2019-2023, faster than the national pace

Largest industries

Hospitality & food21%
Health care & social20%
Information17%
Retail trade8%
Arts & entertainment7%

How people get to work

  • Drive or carpool 97%
  • Work from home 1%
  • Transit, walk, or bike 2%

Life in Santan

The map and measures below break down dining, culture, and green space by neighborhood across Santan.


What the weather is like in Santan, month by month

Santan sees roughly 203 pleasant days a year. July highs average about 107 degrees. January highs sit near 66, with lows near 42. The comfortable stretch runs November through March.

Average daily high, mean, and low in degrees Fahrenheit, NOAA station data 2016 to 2025.
Show the monthly temperatures
MonthAvg highAvgAvg low
January66°56°42°
April87°76°58°
July107°98°84°
October89°79°62°

Flying in and out of Santan

The nearest airport, Phoenix-Mesa Gateway, is about 14 miles away and is a small airport. The nearest major hub is Phoenix Sky Harbor International, about 22 miles away.

Nearest airport
IWA
Phoenix-Mesa Gateway, about 14 miles
Airport size
Small hub
105th-busiest in the US, 1 nonstop destinations
Average drive
20 min
from the area, with no traffic

The best schools in and around Santan

Schools across Santan average a D−, better than 4% 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 Santan school and its grade on SchoolGrade.


Santan 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 Santan against the other 50,332 towns.


Common questions about living in Santan

Is Santan a good place to live?

Using BestNeighborhood's default rankings, Santan ranks 47,649th of 50,333 towns. It scores highest on the weather, cell coverage, and big-city access, and lowest on thin health care access and education levels. How good it is for you depends on which of those you weight most, which the map lets you set.

Is Santan expensive to live in?

The median home is worth $376,900. The overall cost of living runs about 4% below the national average. Set against a $37,626 median income, cost of living beats 3% of towns.

Is Santan safe?

Santan is safer than 11% of towns. Safety varies a lot by neighborhood. Crime costs an estimated $564 per resident a year.


Compare Santan with other towns


Sources and methodology

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

Santan detail on BestNeighborhood maps:

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

Santan 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.