The best places to trick-or-treat in 2016

Amanda Dixon
Updated

Ever wondered how trick-or-treating conditions in your neighborhood stack up against those in other cities? Should your neighbors give out more candy to your kids? Is your area as safe on Halloween night as it is across town? It's hard to know for sure. That's why we created a list of the best places to trick-or-treat. We ranked 252 of the largest U.S. cities using seven metrics, including local crime rates, weather and home affordability. Read on to learn what we discovered.

This is the third annual study of the best places to trick-or-treat. Read the 2015 study here.

Study Specifics

Our analysis is based on several assumptions. We assumed that living in an area with a large population of children would be most beneficial to trick-or-treaters (since residents should be more inclined to hand out candy). So we looked at the percentage of kids under age 15 in each city and the number of single-family homes per square mile (more homes means there's a greater chance to grab more treats).

We also assumed that 60 degrees Fahrenheit was the ideal temperature for trick-or-treating. So we pulled the average maximum temperature for each city on Halloween and compared it to the "perfect" temperature. You can read more about our methodology below.

Buying a house? Find out how much you can afford to pay.

Key Findings

  • Western and Midwestern cities rank well. Most of the cities that appear on the top of our list are located in these two regions. Low median home values and low crime rates make these cities attractive places to live. Both of these areas were the best places for trick-or-treaters in 2015 too.

  • Florida flops. West Palm Beach, Miami and Tallahassee are some of the worst places to trick-or-treat. Halloween just isn't the same when the high for the day is above 80 degrees.

Methodology

To find the best places to trick-or-treat, we considered the following seven factors:

  • Single-family housing density. This is the number of single-family homes per square mile. While there are kids who go trick-or-treating in their apartment buildings, we figured that the best Halloween experience would involve kids going from home to home.

  • Population age 14 or younger. We looked at the number of children under age 15 as a percentage of the total population.

  • Violent crime rate. This is the number of violent crimes per 100,000 residents.

  • Property crime rate. This is the number of property crimes per 100,000 people.

  • Median home value. We concluded that cities with inexpensive homes would be the best places for families (and trick-or-treaters) to live.

  • Average temperature. This is the average maximum temperature in each city on October 31. We compared each city's average temperature to the ideal temperature, or 60 degrees Fahrenheit.

  • Precipitation probability. This reflects the historical odds of a city receiving either 0.1 inches of snow or 0.5 inches of rain on Halloween.

We completed our analysis by ranking all 252 cities, giving full weight to each of our metrics. Then we averaged those rankings and gave each city a score between 0 and 100. The highest ranking city scored a 100 while the lowest ranking city received a 0.

Data Sources

Violent and property crime rates are based on 2014 data from local police department websites and the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting Database. Weather data comes from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The 2015 edition of this study used three-year data from the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey. The Census no longer collects that data.

This year, average home values and data on the percentage of children in each city come from the U.S. Census Bureau's 2015 one-year American Community Survey (ACS). Our density metric is based on five-year estimates from the 2012 edition of the American Community Survey and the 2010 Census Summary File. Our single-family housing unit data comes from the one-year 2015 American Community Survey.

The data analysis for this study was completed by Nick Wallace.

Questions about our study? Contact us at press@smartasset.com.

Photo credit: ©iStock.com/monkeybusinessimages

The post The Best Places to Trick-or-Treat in 2016 appeared first on SmartAsset Blog.


Advertisement