Normally, we think "bigger is better." After all, who doesn't want a bigger house or a bigger yard? But bigger is not always better and sometimes homeowners want to worry less about the care (and cost) of large pristine carpets of green turf.
In a recent survery — 2024's Cities With the Biggest and Smallest Yards — LawnStarter compared 2,000 of the biggest U.S. cities based on the average yard size of single-family homes from data by the Federal Finance Housing Agency (FHFA). The lower the score, the Lawn-liest your city is, translating to less maintenance, less watering, less fertilizer and fewer lawn care costs.
Four of the top five were in New Jersey, with San Francisco taking the No. 3 spot. Overall, 11 of the 25 lawn-liest cities were in New Jersey.
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Not sure where your city ranks in the grand scheme of things? Check out LawnStarter’s 25 cities with the smallest yards below.
25 lawn-liest cities in America
City | Rank |
Hoboken, NJ | 1 |
Union City, NJ | 2 |
San Francisco, CA | 3 |
West New York, NJ | 4 (tie) |
Camden, NJ | 4 (tie) |
Philadelphia, PA | 6 |
Boston, MA | 7 |
New York, NY | 8 |
Atlantic City, NJ | 9 |
Bayonne, NJ | 10 |
Newark, NJ | 11 |
Jersey City, NJ | 12 |
Chester, PA | 13 |
Washington, DC | 14 |
Kearny, NJ | 15 |
Chicago, IL | 16 |
Cliffside Park, NJ | 17 |
Newport Beach, CA | 18 |
Somerville, MA | 19 |
Long Beach, NY | 20 (tie) |
Aliso Viejo, CA | 20 (tie) |
Daly City, CA | 22 |
Baltimore, MD | 23 |
Central LA | 24 |
Paterson, NJ | 25 |
Don’t see your city listed here? Check out LawnStarter's full rankings.
Key insights from the study
Small-city living offers the most yard space and each of the top 10 cities in the LawnStarter study has a population below 50,000. But if you're looking for a big-city lifestyle and big backyards, think about house-hunting in places like Charlotte, NC, Jacksonville, FL or Oklahoma City, OK.
- Hoboken, NJ wins the prize as the #1 city with the smallest yards.
- New Jersey boasts six cities in the top ten and 11 in the top 25.
- Populous cities like New York and San Francisco have some of the smallest yards.
- The average yard size among the lawn-liest 97 cities is less than 0.1 acres.
- Only one California city — Fallbrook — landed among the top 10 cities with the biggest yards, while 255 California cities landed in the bottom half of the rankings.
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