Every ZIP within about 16 miles of the school at 150 North Street, mapped by rent, commute, reported crime, nightlife and who lives there. Light is low, dark is high. Set a budget and ZIPs you can't afford turn grey on every layer.
An independent project built from public data. Not affiliated with or endorsed by North Bennet Street School.
Each ZIP is ranked against the others on every factor, then the ranks are averaged using these weights. 0 ignores a factor. Darker means a better fit.
Rent: HUD Small Area Fair Market Rents for fiscal 2027 give rent by bedroom count, utilities included, at roughly the 40th percentile of what recent movers paid. "Room" is the 3‑bed figure divided by three. Zillow's index () tracks asking rents but only for all sizes together. Asking scales HUD's figure for the unit type by how far Zillow sits from HUD priced over that ZIP's own mix of rental units (Census counts by bedrooms), so areas of mostly small apartments don't look falsely cheap. Blend is halfway between. In Dorchester, Roxbury and Mission Hill, asking rents run 30–40% above HUD. ZIPs without a Zillow index use HUD.
Currency: every source reports in US dollars, which is also what Boston listings use. The C$ view converts at ; rebuilding the map fetches a fresh rate.
Commute: typical minutes to the school on a weekday morning, by walking plus subway or bus, from the MBTA's published timetable. It counts half the time between trips as waiting each time you board, and is the median across each ZIP.
Offenses per 1,000 residents in 2025. Violent means murder, robbery and aggravated assault. Property means burglary, theft and car theft. Town totals come from the FBI's Crime in the United States 2025. Boston's total is split across its ZIPs by where the Boston Police logged each incident.
Outside Boston, every ZIP in a town shares the town's rate. Downtown ZIPs with few residents but lots of visitors are left out, because a per-resident rate would mislead. Treat this as a relative guide. It is not a safety rating for any street.
Venues, cafés, groceries, parks, Bluebikes: how many are within about a 12‑minute walk, averaged across the ZIP, from OpenStreetMap (October 2026) and the Bluebikes station feed. OpenStreetMap misses some small venues.
Aged 20–34, car-free commuters, renters: US Census American Community Survey 2020–2024.
Sources: HUD · Zillow · FBI CDE · Analyze Boston · MBTA GTFS · Census ACS · © OpenStreetMap