The Process

Here’s how we create our annual 25 Best Neighborhoods list.

Our ranking is based on four variables: home prices, crime data, school rankings, and an X factor score that accounts for things that can’t be as easily quantified, such as access to open space, public transportation, and restaurants and shops. Each category is weighted: 30 percent for year-over-year percentage change in home values; 25 percent for safety; 15 percent for neighborhood school ratings; and 30 percent for the X factor. Our initial list of 78 neighborhoods (which was whittled down to 76, as you’ll read below) is based on the city of Denver’s official map. That’s why you won’t see areas like LoHi or RiNo listed; officially, they’re not considered their own neighborhoods, despite what locals might say.

• Average home sale prices: The data was provided by the Denver Metro Association of Realtors (DMAR) and pulled by Michelle Schwinghammer, a broker associate with West + Main Homes and DMAR Market Trends Committee member. The percentage changes reflect the difference in average closing prices between 2022 and 2023. Two Denver neighborhoods (Auraria and Sun Valley) had five or fewer closed home sales in 2023 and were thus excluded from consideration.
• Safety rank: The total number of crimes reported in each neighborhood in 2023 came from the Denver Police Department and is based on definitions from the National Incident Based Reporting System (NIBRS). (Note: The data is dynamic. We based our calculations on the statistics available on August 12, 2024.) The figures were then adjusted per capita using 2022 population statistics pulled from the Neighborhood Dashboard maintained by the City of Denver’s Community Planning and Development office. Finally, neighborhoods were ranked from lowest crime per capita (one) to highest crime per capita (78).
• School ratings: The data was taken from the Colorado Department of Education’s 2023 Final School Ratings (SPF). However, schools with insufficient data for the last two years were excluded. In addition, four schools were excluded that did not administer state assessments (state assessments are only administered for grades three through 12). We awarded the public schools a numerical score based on their state ratings—four was the highest (correlating to “Performance Plan” in the state SPF report) and one was the lowest (“Turnaround Plan” in the report)—and then averaged them to generate a neighborhood score. For neighborhoods that did not have schools within their boundaries, we averaged the ratings of the schools in adjacent neighborhoods. Schools that closed during the 2022–’23 school year were excluded.
• X factor: We awarded each neighborhood a rating on a scale of one to 10 (10 being the highest).

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