Motherhood Moment: Parenting Pointers - 2024's Best Cities for Children's Playgrounds

Which cities offer the best spots to take the kids for a fun day on the playground?

To mark National Playground Safety Week starting April 22, LawnStarter ranked 2024's Best Cities for Children’s Playgrounds.

We compared over 430 of the biggest U.S. cities based on three categories. We considered the number of playgrounds, average visitor ratings, and local crime rate, among 7 total metrics.

See the 10 best (and 10 worst) cities for playgrounds below, followed by key takeaways. (Don’t see your city below? Check out the full ranking.)

Best Cities for Children’s Playgrounds
Rank	City
1	New York, NY
2	Cambridge, MA
3	Somerville, MA
4	Chicago, IL
5	San Francisco, CA
6 7 8 9 10	New Rochelle, NY Boston, MA Waukegan, IL Quincy, MA Jersey City, NJ

Worst Cities for Children’s Playgrounds
Rank	City
1	Pueblo, CO
2	Fayetteville, NC
3	Sioux City, IA
4	Lafayette, LA
5	Richmond, VA
6 7 8 9 10	Gastonia, NC Tyler, TX Macon, GA Independence, MO Flint, MI

Key Insights:

Big cities such as New York (No. 1), Chicago (No. 4), and San Francisco (No. 5) landed at the top with the best access to playgrounds. These cities boast some of the highest Walk Scores, making it easy for children and their caregivers to get to the playground.
Less populous suburbs like New Rochelle, New York (No. 6), Waukegan, Illinois (No. 8), and Johns Creek, Georgia (No. 24) have fewer playgrounds to choose from when compared with NYC, Chicago, and Atlanta (No. 220). However, they scored near the top thanks to their high playground ratings and safe communities.
Richmond, Virginia (No. 427), finished near the bottom of our ranking not from an absence of playgrounds — the city claims 58 — but due to a lack of safety. Richmond has the highest rate of sex offenders out of the cities in our ranking with 295 registered offenders per 10,000 residents at the time of writing.