via MightySnail/Flickr
City Hall in O'Fallon, Missouri
In Missouri, it doesn't get more family-friendly than O'Fallon—at least according to real estate aggregate Apartment List, which recently announced its ranking of the top 10 U.S. cities for families and put the St. Charles County spot at No. 8 on its list.
Cities were scored according to four factors: safety (with data from the FBI on percentage of violent and property crimes), housing affordability (with median gross rent as a percentage of household income), education quality (with high-school graduation rate info from the Department of Education), and child friendliness (as the percentage of children in the area). After analyzing data for 500-plus cities, Apartment List gave O'Fallon, Missouri an A+ grade.
“This is yet another great honor bestowed upon our city,” O'Fallon Mayor Bill Hennessy said in a statement. “It has been a community effort to build and maintain this wonderful city. It all begins with a safe environment provided by our residents and the O’Fallon Police Department. But it’s also the fantastic schools, dedicated businesses, and concerned residents who make O’Fallon such a great place to live.”
So which city was ranked No. 1? Flower Mound, Texas. Three other Texas cities also made the list, as well as Naperville, Illinois, and Rochester Hills, Michigan.
And how did St. Louis fare? No. 476 out of 500—a stark contrast for two cities in the same metro region, which reminded us of a 2011 story examining crime, community, and such rankings.
