Best Midwest Cities for a Moving Budget

Key Takeaways

Midwest affordability is not one market. These cities give movers a stronger first-pass budget screen.

Polk City, IA leads this frozen snapshot for affordability.
The ranking rows are snapshotted at publish time, so shared URLs do not drift when source metrics refresh.
Each city link opens the underlying DataByArea dashboard for deeper local context.
The top three are Polk City, Bright, and Medina.

These rows come from the frozen public snapshot for this URL.

Affordability snapshot rows
Rank	City	Population	Income	2BR Rent	Home Value	Property Tax	Electricity	Score
1	Polk City, IA	5,833	$163,000	$746	$385,000	$6,390	13.42 cents/kWh	83.5
2	Bright, IN	5,735	$111,140	$834	$246,600	$1,880	17.85 cents/kWh	81.3
3	Medina, MN	6,858	$219,181	$1,421	$660,800	$6,967	15.08 cents/kWh	80.8
4	Parkville, MO	8,022	$170,794	$1,078	$557,100	$6,604	13.44 cents/kWh	80.0
5	Mount Zion, IL	6,076	$110,786	$696	$200,300	$4,611	18.86 cents/kWh	79.5
6	Delano, MN	6,712	$118,091	$909	$347,500	$3,637	15.08 cents/kWh	78.5
7	Winnetka, IL	12,508	$250,001	$1,750	$1,206,300	$10,001	18.86 cents/kWh	78.3
8	Chester, IL	6,830	$74,673	$642	$107,800	$1,596	18.86 cents/kWh	78.2
9	Ladue, MO	8,948	$250,001	$1,813	$1,027,000	$10,001	13.44 cents/kWh	77.8
10	Ellettsville, IN	6,653	$82,238	$746	$224,400	$1,555	17.85 cents/kWh	77.6

Affordability compares household income with rent or estimated ownership costs plus property-tax burden.

Published 2026-07-14. Data updated 2026-06-26.

U.S. Census ACSCity population, income, housing value, rent, and property-tax context - Used where city-level fields are available in the DataByArea city database. Source
DataByArea city scoresNormalized city comparison scores - Scores are deterministic planning signals derived from public-source metrics. Source

Best Midwest Cities for a Moving BudgetPolk City, IA ranked in Best Midwest Cities for a Moving Budget

Best Midwest Cities for a Moving Budget - https://databyarea.com/articles/affordability/best-midwest-cities-for-moving-budget/