Congratulations to the city of Fremont, California and Fremont home owners who topped WalletHub’s 2022 rankings of “Best City To Raise a Family.”

The City of Fremont has become an affordable East Bay place for Silicon Valley workers (and Tesla employees) to live, full of culture, relatively affordable homes, lots of new home developments. (Check out this Fremont Market Trends report.)

In addition to good schools, parks, and other family-friendly features, Fremont also offers:

• central commuter access to other East Bay cities like Berkeley, the Dumbarton bridge to the Palo Alto and Menlo Park area (notably landing at Facebook headquarters), along with a straight shot highway to San Jose as well as BART stations
• proximity to open spaces for exercise and relaxation
• an abundance of fantastic restaurants, from Afghani to Indian

Is the WalletHub’s best places ranking the be-all-end-all? 

Data looks good on paper or in bytes, but only when you talk to locals and / or explore a city yourself do you get a real picture of what life is like in a city. Of course there’s also reading Nextdoor and Airbnb hopping to get an even more “real” view of an area. (If you’re pondering Fremont or another Bay Area city, get in touch, and I’ll help you get a feel for the best place for you.

Interestingly, the San Francisco Chronicle published a best places to live for quality of life in the Bay Area list in 2022. Fremont clocked in at #24. (Then again, that same list says Oakland is 9 miles from the nearest airport…which is the Oakland airport. Which is in Oakland.)

Which California cities are the best for families?

An impressive number of California towns and cities made the list of WalletHub’s 2022 list of Best and Worst Places to Raise a Family.

In addition to Fremont being the best place in the country to live, other great places for families in California that ranked on WalletHub’s list:

• #3 Irvine in Southern California
• #6 San Francisco
• #8 San Jose
• #12 San Francisco
• #15 Huntington Beach in Southern California
• #33 Santa Clarita in Southern California
• #37 Chula Vista in Southern California
• #40 Santa Rosa near Sonoma Wine Country
• #44 Sacramento, our state capitol
• #55 Garden Grove in Southern California near Anaheim
• #63 Oceanside in Southern California
• #65 Glendale in Southern California
• #74 Modesto outside of the Bay Area in the Central Valley
• #90 Bakersfield
• #94 Long Beach (which oddly enough is high on the un-affordability list, whereas San Francisco and Palo Alto didn’t even rank. Hmmmm.)