Best Affordable Suburbs: Midwest

Dreaming of idyllic and inexpensive suburban life? Head to the heartland

by Maya Roney

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Think of Midwest suburbia, and you may picture squeaky-clean streets lined with identical single-family homes and friendly neighbors who bring over fresh-baked pies. You may imagine a place where you can let your children play outside and leave your door unlocked without a worry in the world.

Of course, this is an exaggeration—the Midwest has its fair share of economically depressed cities, and it's certainly not crime-free. We do know of a few places, however, that live up to the region's idyllic stereotype. And you'll be pleased to discover that in the Midwest, you don't always have to pay a premium price for the good life.

In part three of our four-part series on America's Best Affordable Suburbs by region—after the first installment on suburbs in the Northeast and the second on suburbs in the West—the places on our list of the Best Affordable Suburbs in the Midwest, compiled with Portland (Ore.)-based research group Sperling's BestPlaces, have the best combination of affordability and quality that we have seen in any U.S. region so far. Half of the suburbs on the list have a median home price below $239,800, and only five of the 25 have median home prices above $300,000. The average cost of living index among these suburbs falls just short of the average for the country (100), at 98.4.

In many other parts of the country, schools and safety suffer as affordability increases, but this doesn't seem to be the case in the Midwest. The secondary school test score indexes on our list range from 93.2 (Rochester, Minn.) to 210.5 (Columbia, Mo.), compared to each state's average of 100. The average violent crime index on the list is just 57, vs. the nation's average of 100—so you may be able to leave that door unlocked after all.

The Best in Chicagoland

To be sure, finding a high-quality, inexpensive suburb outside Chicago—the third most populous city in the U.S. and the Midwest's largest city by a long shot—is a tougher task than finding a place to live in some of the region's less-populated spots.

You could do far worse than Lake Zurich, Ill., a village of about 19,000 residents roughly a 40-minute drive northwest from the Windy City. "It's a great place to raise a family," says Sadie Winter, a realtor with Century 21 Premier Properties in neighboring Glenview, Ill. "It has a small-town feel."

The almost rural scenery, complete with lakefront beaches and parks, makes Lake Zurich a kind of oasis in an area that also houses the headquarters of such major companies as Boeing (BA), Motorola (MOT), McDonald's (MCD), and Sears (SHLD). Settled in the 1830s and incorporated in 1896, it remained a farming community before developing into a popular summer resort in the late 1920s. Housing development began in the 1950s, and in 2006 the village broke ground for a downtown redevelopment.

Lake Zurich's above-average school system (test score index: 111.5) and virtually nonexistent crime rate (violent crime index: 29) complement its aesthetic appeal. "When you have good schools for an affordable price, of course everybody flocks there," says Winter. And while the town's median home price of $659,900 is the highest on our list, there are plenty of fine homes at lower price points in the district. Winter says she and business partner Dana Cohen were recently showing brand-new, three-bedroom homes in Lake Zurich in the $400,000 range. In the town's Forest Lake neighborhood, similar-size homes are priced in the $300,000s, Winter adds. While these homes tend to be older, it's the same school district.