Want to spend more quality time with your family? Personal finance website WalletHub has released a list of the best and worst Illinois towns for that.
To identify the most family-friendly Illinois cities, WalletHub's analysts compared 162 cities in the Prairie State across 21 categories, including the percentage of families with young children, to median family income, to housing affordability.
North suburban Deerfield was named second-best in the state for families, with six other suburbs around the Chicagoland area also making the top 10.
Best Cities for Illinois Families
1 Morton
2 Deerfield
3 Washington
4 Libertyville
5 O'Fallon
6 Hinsdale
7 Cary
8 Lake in the Hills
9 Frankfort
10 Naperville
South suburban Harvey was named as second-to-last on the list of worst cities for families, with the city of Chicago and several suburbs making up most of the worst ten cities for families in the state.
Worst Cities for Illinois Families
153 Country Club Hills
154 Chicago
155 Kankakee
156 Calumet City
157 Bridgeview
158 Blue Island
159 Maywood
160 Dolton
161 Harvey
162 East St. Louis
The downstate cities of Morton, near Peoria, and East St. Louis were named as best and worst cities for families in the state, respectively.
The study also ranked towns on various socioeconomic aspects - families with children, crime rates, school systems, divorce rates and medical care availability.
The study says west suburban Montgomery has the highest percentage of families with children younger than age 18, twice as many as in northwest suburban Bloomingdale, the place with the lowest.
Downstate Mount Vernon has the highest property-crime rate, which is 13 times greater than in Charleston, home to Eastern Illinois University, the town with the lowest property-crime rate.
East St. Louis has the highest divorce rate, which is six times greater than in southwest suburban Frankfort, the place with the lowest. East St. Louis also has the highest percentage of families receiving food stamps. Northwest suburban Huntley has the lowest. East St. Louis was also ranked as having the lowest-quality school system in the state. West suburban Hinsdale has the highest.
Northwest suburban Woodstock has the highest number of pediatricians per capita; downstate Decatur has the lowest.