National survey says Rock Hill ‘average’ city for young families

Rock Hill is an "average" city for young families, according to the research web site Apartmentlist.com.

Analysts looked at safety, housing costs, school quality and child friendliness. Rock Hill scored highest for education, but lowest for housing, earning an overall grade of "C." Rock Hill ranked 329th out of 474 cities studied.

The highest South Carolina city on the list was Mt. Pleasant, which earned a "B+" and ranked 100th. Charleston earned a "B-" and ranked 273rd. North Charleston earned a "D" and ranked 401st. and near the bottom was Columbia, which earned an "F" and ranked 470th.

Allen, Texas ranked No. 1.

Four of the top 10 cities were from the Dallas metro area. Small to mid-sized cities in affordable states were generally better for young families—cities in Idaho, Texas, Arizona, and Kansas did particularly well.

Large cities tended not to do very well, as the analysis showed they are relatively expensive, and have higher crime rates and lower education scores than their surrounding suburbs.

At the bottom of the list were St. Louis, Cleveland and Birmingham. These were cities had low safety scores - St. Louis had 7,913 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents - poor schools, and low incomes relative to the cost of rent, according to the study.

To determine safety, analysts used the FBI data to rank cities by the number of violent crimes and property crimes per 100,000 residents.

For housing costs, Census data was used to determine percentage of the median renter income required to rent a 2-bedroom apartment.

For school quality, cities were ranked on high school graduation rate for public school districts.

Child friendliness was based on Census data on the percentage of a city's population under 18.

This story was originally published February 23, 2016 at 12:02 PM with the headline "National survey says Rock Hill ‘average’ city for young families."