The 7 best Minneapolis neighborhoods for families

Fulton is first of the seven on Local Logic's reading, in a near-tie with Armatage and Kenny, and it shares their top quiet reading. What sets it apart is the school count: it has the highest share of A-rated schools in range on this list. Most of Fulton is zoned to Lake Harriet Community SchoolRated A+, whose upper campus is inside the neighborhood, and then to Southwest High SchoolRated A-; the Catholic school nearest its center is a private option, not the zoned one. Fulton runs from 47th to 54th Street between Penn and France Avenues, with Lake Harriet at its northeast corner and the Edina line on its west. West 50th Street crosses it with three small commercial corners: Broders' Pasta Bar is on the Penn Avenue corner, and the France Avenue corner is 50th and France, a shopping district Fulton shares with Edina. The neighborhood park is Pershing Park, at 48th and Chowen, one of the few in the city not named for its neighborhood, where park staff host a community gathering on the third Thursday of each month.

Fulton's houses went up mostly in the 1920s and 1930s, and 84% of its homes predate 1960, against 27% across the metro, but that share is shrinking: Fulton was at the center of the teardown wave that prompted a 2014 building moratorium in southwest Minneapolis, and new houses keep replacing the originals. A house costs $725k at the median across 100 recorded sales and goes under contract in about 12 days.

Armatage is the city's southwest corner, bounded by 54th Street, Logan Avenue, Highway 62 and the city limit at Xerxes Avenue, and it is the post-war pick of the seven. The area was part of Richfield until Minneapolis annexed it in the 1920s, and most of its houses went up between 1949 and 1969, so 79% of homes predate 1960 against 27% across the metro. It shares the top quiet reading with most of this list. At the center is Armatage Park, with its community center, and Armatage Community SchoolRated A+ is inside the neighborhood; the zoned path runs from that school to Southwest High SchoolRated A-. The neighborhood's restaurants line Penn Avenue South and Xerxes Avenue, Colita on Penn and Pizzeria Lola on Xerxes among them.

It is also the most family-heavy of the seven: 43% of households have children, against 31% across the metro, and the median age is 36.1, younger than any pick that shares its quiet reading. Houses here sell for $465k at the median, the lowest of that group, over 68 recorded sales, and they sell in about 9 days.

Kenny is third, a hair behind Fulton and Armatage, and it shares their top quiet reading, though Highway 62 runs along its southern edge. It is almost entirely single-family houses between 54th Street and the highway, from Logan Avenue to Lyndale, and its center is Kenny Park, with a playground, a wading pool, tennis courts and athletic fields. The park's grounds are shared with two schools, Kenny Community SchoolRated A+ and Anthony Middle SchoolRated A, so a child here can walk to both the zoned elementary and the zoned middle school. The zoned high school is Southwest High SchoolRated A-, not Washburn High SchoolRated B, though Washburn is the nearer of the two. At the south end is Grass Lake, a 27-acre protected wetland where neighbors turn out for volunteer days to clear invasive buckthorn.

Kenny's elementary and middle schools share one park; its zoned high school is Southwest, not the nearer Washburn.Walk to school9+0.8 vs the Minneapolis metroHigh school access8.4+2 vs the Minneapolis metro

Much of Kenny south of 58th Street was once the Bachman family farm; today 89% of its homes predate 1960, against 27% across the metro. The past year brought 63 recorded house sales at a $501k median, and the typical house sold in about 11 days. There is no rail station in or near Kenny, so most errands start in the driveway.

Lynnhurst ties Hale for the top parks reading10/10 on this list, according to Local Logic, and the reasons run right through it: it sits on Lake Harriet's southeast shore, Minnehaha Creek and its parkway cut across it, and Lynnhurst Park and Burroughs Community SchoolRated A+ are at its center. It is a tree-lined neighborhood of early-20th-century houses, 91% of them older than 1960 against 27% across the metro, with a small City historic district on the 4600 blocks of Dupont, Emerson and Fremont Avenues. Its shops sit in corner clusters, at 50th and Bryant, 50th and Penn and 54th and Lyndale, most of them shared with the neighbors, and St. Genevieve is among the restaurants on the Bryant corner. The streets share the top quiet reading too, though the City's own neighborhood plan notes the air traffic overhead from the airport.

School assignment splits Lynnhurst, so read the address. Most of it, north of about 52nd Street, is zoned to Burroughs and then to Washburn High SchoolRated B, which stands just across Lyndale Avenue in Tangletown; a band along the south edge, from about 52nd to 54th Street, is zoned instead to the elementary schools in Kenny and Armatage and then to Southwest High SchoolRated A-. 41% of households have children, against 31% across the metro. Its houses move fastest of the seven, going under contract in about 7 days, and the median across 72 recorded sales is $770k.

Linden Hills ties Fulton for the top café reading6.8/10 on this list, according to Local Logic, and 2 cafés, like most of its shops, gather at one place: the corner of 43rd Street and Upton Avenue, built along the streetcar line in the 1920s and still called "downtown" Linden Hills by the people who live around it. Martina is on that corner too. The neighborhood is hilly and mostly single-family, running from Bde Maka Ska south to 47th Street between Lake Harriet and France Avenue, with Linden Hills Park on 43rd Street. On its eastern edge are the Lake Harriet Bandshell and the Minnesota Streetcar Museum's restored cars, a seasonal family ride between the two lakes, and in winter the lake hosts the Minneapolis Kite Festival.

Linden Hills is zoned to Lake Harriet Community SchoolRated A+, whose lower campus is inside the neighborhood, and then to Southwest High SchoolRated A-, at its southern edge; the nearest middle school on the radius list is a charter, not the zoned one. It is two housing markets. Houses, the most expensive of the seven, sold for a $790k median over 81 recorded sales, in about 9 days; condominiums sold for $232k over 32 recorded sales, in about 29 days, which is why no single figure describes both.

Hale shares the top parks reading10/10 with Lynnhurst, and its parkland forms its edges: Minnehaha Creek's parkway runs along the north side and a corner of Lake Nokomis reaches its east side. Inside those edges, south of the creek between Chicago and Cedar Avenues, are blocks of 1920s and 1930s houses, 90% of them older than 1960 against 27% across the metro, and it shares the top quiet reading with most of this list. Hale is the one pick east of I-35W, and it organizes together with its neighbors Page and Diamond Lake as a single community association.

Hale's parks are its borders: the creek parkway along one side, Lake Nokomis at another.Quiet8.6+0.8 vs the Minneapolis metroCycling8.6+2.4 vs the Minneapolis metro

Hale's school figure looks weakest of the seven at first glance, and the reason is the count: the rated schools in range include a long run of charter schools and programs, which dilutes the A-rated share. By address, Hale is zoned to Hale Community SchoolRated A+, inside the neighborhood, which shares one attendance area with Field Elementary SchoolRated A+, and then to Washburn High SchoolRated B. Our Lady of Peace, a Catholic parish school inside Hale, is the private option the ratings leave out. 41% of households have children, against 31% across the metro, and the 41 houses that sold in the past year went for a $505k median.

Windom is the different one. It has the strongest daycare access on this list, according to Local Logic, and the strongest grocery access8.2/10, with a Cub supermarket on Nicollet Avenue, but it is not a quiet pick: boxed in by I-35W on the east and Highway 62 on the south, it reads well below the rest of the list on quiet and only just clears the bar. It is also more mixed than the rest. Single-family blocks fill the north, apartment and townhome complexes fill much of the south, and 55% of households rent, the most of the seven. Windom South Park is the neighborhood's park, and The Museum of Russian Art sits on its northeast corner at Diamond Lake Road. It is not Windom Park, a separate neighborhood in Northeast Minneapolis.

Windom trades the quiet the rest of this list shares for the strongest grocery access on it, between I-35W and Highway 62.Quiet4.6−3.2 vs the Minneapolis metroGroceries8.2+3 vs the Minneapolis metro

Most of Windom is zoned to Windom Community SchoolRated A; the corner west of Lyndale Avenue, which the community council calls Windom Corner, is zoned to Kenny Community SchoolRated A+ instead, and all of Windom goes on to Southwest High SchoolRated A-, though Washburn High SchoolRated B is nearer. Its $403k median house price, across 36 recorded sales, is the lowest of the seven, and houses take about 13 days to sell.