Best PlacesSt. John the Baptist Parish, LA Best Neighborhoods

2026–2027 edition · Data updated July 2026

Every neighborhood in St. John the Baptist Parish, 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

St. John the Baptist Parish ranks 3,027th of 3,144 U.S. counties on the BestNeighborhood index. It scores highest on cell coverage by a wide margin, and car insurance costs are the weak spot.

#3,027
of 3,144 counties
BestNeighborhood rank
Defaults weight crime safety, affordability, schools, and weather highest: the things hardest to change after a move
N/A
of 3,144 counties
Your rank
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The best neighborhoods in St. John the Baptist Parish

Map of the best neighborhoods in the St. John the Baptist Parish 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.

St. John the Baptist Parish's strengths and weaknesses

Top 3%Cell coverage
Top 10%Low property taxes
Each measure against the national median. Bars to the right beat the median; bars to the left fall short. Percentiles compare St. John the Baptist Parish with other counties.

Where St. John the Baptist Parish ranks high

  • Cell coverageBetter than 98% of counties
  • Low property taxBetter than 91% of counties
  • Big-city accessBetter than 79% of counties
  • Housing crash safetyBetter than 72% of counties
  • BikingBetter than 70% of counties

Where St. John the Baptist Parish ranks low

  • Cheap car insuranceBetter than only 1% of counties
  • State infrastructureBetter than only 1% of counties
  • School gradeD−, better than only 3% of counties
  • QuietBetter than only 3% of counties
  • Disaster safetyBetter than only 4% of counties

What it costs to buy a home in St. John the Baptist Parish

A household needs to earn about $50,000 a year to comfortably buy the median St. John the Baptist Parish home, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate. That is below the area's own median income of $67,766, so a typical household can afford the median home outright.

Income to buy the median home
$50,000
a year, at 20% down and today's 30-year rate
Estimated monthly payment
$1,163
principal, interest, tax, and insurance on a $201,716 home
Median rent
$1,526
a month, across all home sizes

Where the monthly payment goes

Principal & interest$1,028
Property tax$67
Homeowners insurance$67

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 St. John the Baptist Parish's effective rate of 0.40%, 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 4 years, then pulls ahead as rent keeps rising and the mortgage builds equity. 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 St. John the Baptist Parish

St. John the Baptist Parish's age mix sits close to the national median.

Median age
41
about the U.S. median of 41
Residents 65 and older
17%
versus 18% nationally
Average household
2.7
near the U.S. average of 2.6

Residents by age

Under 1821%
18 to 3421%
35 to 4920%
50 to 6421%
65 and older17%

Racial and ethnic makeup has its own map. See the race and diversity map for St. John the Baptist Parish.


Who works in St. John the Baptist Parish, and how

Work in St. John the Baptist Parish centers on health care & social and retail trade. Unemployment sits above the national rate, and jobs are growing.

Work from home
8%
below the national average
Unemployment
6.4%
above the national average
Job growth
+1.8%
/y 2019-2023, slower than the national pace

Largest industries

Health care & social19%
Retail trade13%
Construction12%
Manufacturing10%
Public administration7%

How people get to work

  • Drive or carpool 89%
  • Work from home 8%
  • Transit, walk, or bike 3%

Life in St. John the Baptist Parish

St. John the Baptist Parish has fewer places to eat and drink per resident than most counties. That concentrates in some parts of St. John the Baptist Parish and thins out in others, which the map shows.

Places to eat and drink
165
restaurants, bars, and fast food, about 38.8 per 10,000 residents, more than 33% of counties
Coffee shops
16
about 3.8 per 10,000 residents, more than 30% of counties

Is St. John the Baptist Parish growing, and who is moving in?

St. John the Baptist Parish has lost about 9% of its population over the last decade. The largest inbound stream comes from the rest of the New Orleans, LA metro.

Population growth
-9%
over the decade, vs about 6% nationally
Population
39,694
down from 43,714
Population by year. Source: U.S. Census Population Estimates Program.

Where new residents come from

The rest of the New Orleans, LA metro1,324 / yr
Gulfport, MS252 / yr
Baton Rouge, LA114 / yr
Hammond, LA99 / yr
Dallas, TX66 / yr

Where people leaving St. John the Baptist Parish go

The rest of the New Orleans, LA metro746 / yr
Baton Rouge, LA651 / yr
Slidell, LA237 / yr
Alexandria, LA154 / yr
Lafayette, LA135 / yr

Move counts are the latest county-to-county migration flows, each county grouped into its metro.


What the weather is like in St. John the Baptist Parish, month by month

St. John the Baptist Parish sees roughly 108 pleasant days a year. July highs average about 94 degrees. January highs sit near 66, with lows near 45. The comfortable stretch runs October through April.

Average daily high, mean, and low in degrees Fahrenheit, NOAA station data 2016 to 2025.
Show the monthly temperatures
MonthAvg highAvgAvg low
January66°55°45°
April81°71°61°
July94°84°77°
October84°74°65°

Flying in and out of St. John the Baptist Parish

Louis Armstrong New Orleans International sits about 16 miles away. It is a medium hub and boarded 6.2 million passengers in 2025, with 112 nonstop destinations.

Nearest airport
MSY
Louis Armstrong New Orleans International, about 16 miles
Airport size
Medium hub
39th-busiest in the US, 112 nonstop destinations
Average drive
23 min
from the area, with no traffic

The best schools in and around St. John the Baptist Parish

Schools across St. John the Baptist Parish average a D−, better than 3% of counties.

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 St. John the Baptist Parish school and its grade on SchoolGrade.


St. John the Baptist 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 St. John the Baptist Parish against the other 3,143 counties.


Who St. John the Baptist Parish suits

Families

Schools land around the 3rd percentile.

See the families priority ↑

Remote workers

Internet is fast and widely advertised and 8% already work from home.

See the remote-work priority ↑

Retirees

The weather beats 66% of counties.

See the retirees priority ↑


Common questions about living in St. John the Baptist Parish

Is St. John the Baptist Parish a good place to live?

Using BestNeighborhood's default rankings, St. John the Baptist Parish ranks 3,027th of 3,144 counties. It scores highest on cell coverage, low property taxes, and big-city access, 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 St. John the Baptist Parish expensive to live in?

The median home is worth $201,716. The overall cost of living runs about 9% below the national average. Set against a $67,766 median income, cost of living beats 31% of counties.

Is St. John the Baptist Parish safe?

St. John the Baptist Parish is safer than 7% of counties. Safety varies a lot by neighborhood. Crime costs an estimated $787 per resident a year.

What is the weather like in St. John the Baptist Parish?

July highs average about 94 degrees, and January highs near 66 with lows near 45. That works out to about 108 pleasant days a year, more than 66% of counties.

Is St. John the Baptist Parish good for families?

Schools beat 3% of counties, crime safety beats 7%, and childcare runs $699 a month.


Compare St. John the Baptist Parish with other counties


Sources and methodology

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

St. John the Baptist Parish detail on BestNeighborhood maps:

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

St. John the Baptist Parish 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. U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program: population growth and net migration behind the population-change section.
  3. NOAA Global Surface Summary of the Day: the daily station record behind the monthly temperatures and the pleasant-day count.
  4. FAA Passenger Boarding Data: airport size and annual passenger counts.
  5. Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey: the 30-year fixed rate used in the cost-to-buy estimate.
  6. FBI Crime Data Explorer: reported offenses behind the tangible crime cost estimate.
  7. U.S. EPA Air Quality System: five year average air quality index.
  8. FEMA National Risk Index: expected annual loss from natural hazards.
  9. CDC PLACES: disease burden, preventable risk, and barriers to care.
  10. National Center for Education Statistics: school enrollment and assessment inputs behind the school grade.
  11. FCC National Broadband Map: internet and wireless availability.
  12. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics: employment and job growth behind the local economy score.
  13. Religious activity uses a proprietary religious signal measurement.