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Place dossier plate
SheetAL-SPANISH-FORT-AL · Spanish Fort, AL 10,377 pop · income 79th pct
Instrument codes from this place’s ACS population and household income, BEA state COL, FBI safety, national income percentile, photo-finish peer city, home-value band, and matched Census-tract book - not a moving recommendation.
Income neighbourhood around Spanish Fort
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Spanish Fort on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
East Bakersfi… · lowest
36,039
East Bakersfi… · lowest
36,039 median HH income
29.6% of the leader · rank #1
Lazy Y U · near
101,563
Lazy Y U · near
101,563 median HH income
83.5% of the leader · rank #2
Clear Lake · near
101,563
Clear Lake · near
101,563 median HH income
83.5% of the leader · rank #3
Pickett · near
101,571
Pickett · near
101,571 median HH income
83.5% of the leader · rank #4
Spanish Fort · this city
101,574
Spanish Fort · this city
101,574 median HH income
83.5% of the leader · rank #5
Latham · near
101,580
Latham · near
101,580 median HH income
83.5% of the leader · rank #6
Pike Road · highest
121,687
Pike Road · highest
121,687 median HH income
100.0% of the leader · rank #7
What this shows Neighbourhood peers only - not a full nationwide city board. Open a near peer when the gap is small; open the poles when the spread is wide.
Compare beyond this state
Nationwide peers by population, income, and FBI crime rate
Out-of-state nearest neighbors for Spanish Fort on ACS population and median household income
, plus FBI UCR reporting rate when the extract covers this place. Link sets are deduped so each column is a distinct comparison path, not a forecast that peers share a labor market or climate.
Similar population
Nearest out-of-state cities by ACS population. This city: 10,377.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Spanish Fort - the verdict
Measured against every US city with at least 1,000 residents, Spanish Fort lands in the 79th percentile for household income and the 47th percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
79th
percentile, household income
67th
percentile, home value
1st
percentile, median rent
47th
percentile, safety
📝 How we sourced this
Population, income, and housing-cost figures come from the U.S. Census Bureau American Community Survey 5-year estimates (B-series tables). Crime data uses FBI UCR; climate uses NOAA Climate Normals; school counts come from NCES Common Core of Data; permits use the Census Building Permits Survey (BPS). See our methodology page for the full ETL pipeline and OMB / FIPS join keys.
Data Snapshot: Spanish Fort, AL
Spanish Fort is a small town in Alabama, home to 10,377 residents per U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. Spanish Fort households earn a median of $101,574 annually, placing it in the top quartile of U.S. cities for household income, with a poverty rate of 5.7%. Home values in Spanish Fort run a median of $314,000, and the median resident age is 37.3 years. About 44.5% of adults hold a bachelor's degree or higher, while 58.5% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
The Census Building Permit Survey recorded 85 residential units authorized here in 2024 (Construction Slowdown), down 34% from five years earlier. Spanish Fort reports a comparatively low crime rate: FBI UCR figures show 1455.5 crimes per 100,000 residents, below the national average (reporting is voluntary across agencies, so treat this as reporting activity rather than a definitive danger score).
Living costs in Alabama run below the national norm: the state registers 88.8 on a 100-equals-national-average index (Well Below Average) per BEA Regional Price Parities 2024. A typical two-bedroom carries a HUD Fair Market Rent of $936 per month statewide. Monthly utility costs average around $245 across Alabama, per EIA 2023 residential energy estimates. Natural-hazard exposure scores 61.5 out of 100 on FEMA's National Risk Index (Moderate).
A decision-led reading path
Useful questions to ask of Spanish Fort's data
How this reading path is ordered
This is not a composite city score. It is a city-specific route through the available public records, ordered for this profile so the page starts with questions the joined data can actually answer. The route here runs from comparison shortlist to work and mobility to schools and households to population change to reported crime to housing and income; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Spanish Fort, city-specific coverage includes local building permits, commute-mode shares, annual population history, FBI reported-crime rates, matched public-school count.
No matched row is reported here for within-city Census tract profiles; the page leaves those layers out instead of substituting a statewide or national value.
Question 1
Which cities make useful reference points for Spanish Fort?
Within Alabama, the closest population matches are Valley (10,406 residents, $55,422 income); Clay (10,288 residents, $86,163 income); Meridianville (10,268 residents, $93,030 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are East Bakersfield, CA (10,377 residents); Progress, FL (10,378 residents); Wabash, IN (10,378 residents). A third, income-matched reference set of 6 out-of-state cities sits in the income neighbourhood chart near the Place Dossier plate. These are mechanical peer sets, not claims that the places share a labor market, climate, culture, or metro context.
Use the in-state set to hold state policy and broad price conditions more nearly constant. Use the nationwide size set to ask whether cities with a similar resident count produce different housing, income, or commute outcomes. The income set is a third lens, deliberately separate from population matching. The nationwide peer panel below adds a fourth FBI UCR reporting-rate lens, not personal risk.
What does the journey to work look like in Spanish Fort?
Mode share answers how workers usually travel; it does not measure congestion, reliability, distance to a particular job, or the quality of transit service. No single mode completely explains the work trip here. The mix is more useful than a one-number commute grade, especially when comparing places where transit, walking, and remote work divide the non-driving share differently.
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 83.6%. A reliable mean commute time is not available for this row, so the mode shares carry the comparison.
What does the education layer cover for Spanish Fort?
The NCES join finds 4 public schools within the city match. 44.5% of adults age 25+ hold a bachelor's degree or higher in the ACS estimate. These measures answer different questions: the school count describes local institutions, while adult attainment describes residents and cannot be used as a school-quality rating.
The city has a broader matched school footprint, but count alone does not describe performance, capacity, program availability, or attendance boundaries. This profile deliberately avoids converting it into an unsupported family-friendliness score.
Is Spanish Fort growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Recent estimates point upward. Growth can increase housing demand and service needs, but the permit record must move in the same direction before calling it a supply response; the two series measure different things.
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +1,085 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +10.7% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 85 housing units authorized in 2024. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
These joined records add useful context, but they do not need another full-size panel. Each remains a separate measure with its own geography and source boundary.
Reported crime
What can the FBI record say about safety in Spanish Fort?
Treat this as a reporting-rate comparison, not a prediction of personal risk or a neighborhood-level safety grade. Tourism, daytime population, reporting practices, and variation inside the city are not adjusted away. The state rank and same-state peer table are the narrower comparisons available on this page.
The joined FBI UCR record reports 1455.5 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, below the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 36% lower in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
Property rate
1366.2
Violent rate
89.3
Total reported rate
1455.5
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
How far does income reach against housing in Spanish Fort?
The home-value-to-income reference sits in a middle range: the ACS median home value is 3.1 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 5.7%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
This is a citywide price-to-income reference, not a mortgage-affordability test; it does not include interest rates, taxes, insurance, household size, or an individual buyer's down payment. Income and home value move within the same broad scale here. The useful next check is not a generic affordability label, but whether similar-size cities offer a materially different income, housing, or commute trade-off.
Household income
$101,574
Home value
$314,000
Value / income
3.1×
City-level Census ACS 2023 medians. The ratio divides two separate medians and is descriptive only.
Comparative score against U.S. cities with population of 1,000 or more on Census ACS medians
(income, poverty, bachelor's share, cost of living) and FBI UCR violent-crime rates when
published. Higher means a stronger standing on those published figures, not a livability
rating, not a recommendation to move, buy, or pick a "best" city. Missing inputs drop out
and redistribute weight.
How it is calculated.
Cost of living A+
88.8 index
BEA state Regional Price Parities index (100 ≈ national average); lower is stronger on this axis. Same value for every city in the state.
Bachelor's+ share B+
44.5%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Household income B+
$101,574
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Violent crime B
89 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Poverty rate C+
5.7%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Spanish Fort profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Cost of living: 90/100 (A+) · 88.8 index
Bachelor's+ share: 79/100 (B+) · 44.5%
Household income: 78/100 (B+) · $101,574
Violent crime: 73/100 (B) · 89 /100k
Poverty rate: 61/100 (C+) · 5.7%
Where Spanish Fort sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Spanish Fort's median home value and FBI crime rate plotted with similar-size and
same-state peers (padded with large cities when the peer set is thin). The second
read: pricey does not always mean safer, check which quadrant this city lands in.
Census ACS median home value vs FBI UCR crime rate - Spanish Fort highlighted among 26 peers.Read the chart values
Spanish Fort, AL (this city): home $314,000, crime 1,456/100k
Garden City, GA : home $160,700, crime 4,024/100k
Portage, WI : home $187,300, crime 2,095/100k
Versailles, KY : home $257,600, crime 826/100k
Valley, AL : home $130,500, crime 4,218/100k
Rainbow City, AL : home $203,600, crime 1,013/100k
New York, NY : home $751,700, crime 3,039/100k
Los Angeles, CA : home $879,500, crime 2,212/100k
Chicago, IL : home $315,200, crime 4,012/100k
Houston, TX : home $253,400, crime 5,442/100k
Phoenix, AZ : home $381,900, crime 3,125/100k
Philadelphia, PA : home $232,400, crime 5,457/100k
San Antonio, TX : home $219,700, crime 5,218/100k
San Diego, CA : home $848,500, crime 2,082/100k
Dallas, TX : home $295,300, crime 4,010/100k
San Jose, CA : home $1,187,800, crime 3,195/100k
Austin, TX : home $512,700, crime 3,709/100k
Fort Worth, TX : home $277,300, crime 3,158/100k
Columbus, OH : home $234,500, crime 3,088/100k
Indianapolis, IN : home $207,000, crime 4,214/100k
San Francisco, CA : home $1,380,500, crime 4,526/100k
Seattle, WA : home $912,100, crime 5,783/100k
Denver, CO : home $586,700, crime 5,755/100k
Oklahoma City, OK : home $215,100, crime 3,570/100k
El Paso, TX : home $171,700, crime 1,772/100k
Washington, DC : home $724,600, crime 4,514/100k
How does Spanish Fort compare to other US cities?
Where Spanish Fort sits among all US cities (population 1,000+) on each measure, computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income79% higher than other cities
Home value67% pricier than other cities
Median rent1% pricier than other cities
Safety47% safer than other cities
"Safer than" reflects total crime rate from FBI UCR; the others use Census ACS estimates.
A national percentile can hide a lot of local variation: narrowed to Alabama alone, Spanish Fort ranks #81 of 222 Alabama cities by lowest crime rate - a different, more locally useful comparison than stacking it against the entire country.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares Spanish Fort against every qualifying US city; each in-state rank narrows that to Alabama only. Full formula and direction notes: methodology.
Alabama-relative analysis
Median Gross Rent places Spanish Fort near the bottom of Alabama's cities
Among the 556 Alabama cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Spanish Fort ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Spanish Fort only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#31 of 530
94th percentile in Alabama
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 556
0th percentile in Alabama
Median Home Value
#24 of 517
95th percentile in Alabama
Poverty Rate
#415 of 556
25th percentile in Alabama
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#30 of 556
95th percentile in Alabama
How in-state ranks are ordered
Ranked by raw value (highest first); a higher rank is not automatically "better" for every measure, see each metric's own context above. This is a comparison within Alabama only, not a livability score. See the methodology for the source and calculation.
Gauge source note
79th percentile nationally for median household income · 47th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Spanish Fort's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Spanish Fort's percentile rank on 3 favorable-direction measures (income, affordability, safety) vs. every tracked US city -- higher on every axis is more favorable. Not a composite quality score, just the arithmetic mean of the axes shown.
How Spanish Fort's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$314,00033rd percentilemore affordable than 33% of 15,600 US cities
Show national distribution
Each bar is a $25K-wide band; taller bars hold more US cities. The dashed line + filled bar mark this entry. Hover or tap any bar for its full count, share, and where it sits relative to this entry.
Source U.S. Census Bureau ACS 5-Year Estimates · 2023
Spanish Fort's home-value-to-income ratio: 3.1×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
moderate
3.0–5.0×
National rank
#7,147 of 15,516
More affordable than 54% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#1,034 of 3,317
Small cities (10,000–49,999)
At 3.1×, Spanish Fort sits in the moderate band:
national rank #7,147 of 15,516 and #1,034 of 3,317small cities (10,000–49,999).
Income and home value move in the same broad scale; check same-state peers before treating the multiple as an advantage or a warning.
How this ratio is calculated
Ratio = Census ACS 2023 median home value ÷ median household income for cities with both fields and population ≥ 1,000.
Rank 1 = lowest ratio (most compact). Bands match the fleet affordability thresholds used on guides (<3.0 / 3.0–5.0 / >5.0).
This is not a mortgage payment estimate and does not include rates, taxes, insurance, or down payment.
Income distribution context
$101,574Spanish Fort, AL median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Spanish Fort, AL median household income (Census ACS 5-year) with U.S. national quintile shares for context. Diagonal = equality; the curve is national, not computed for Spanish Fort, AL.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)44.5%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)5.7%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)58.5%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
10,377
Median Income
$101,574
Median Home Value
$314,000
Median Age
37.3
Poverty Rate
5.7%
Labor force participation
58.5%
Bachelor's Degree+
44.5%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
1455.5
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
89.3
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
1366.2
per 100,000 residents
Crime reporting caveat
Reflects incidents reported to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting program — agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies by jurisdiction and year, so this reflects reporting activity, not a definitive danger score. Not adjusted for tourism, commuter, or daytime population.
Schools
Total Schools
4
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Spanish Fort's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
10,118 residents
2021
10,398 residents
2022
10,628 residents
2023
10,918 residents
2024
11,085 residents
2025
11,203 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
📉 Construction Slowdown
Total Permits (2024)
85
housing units authorized
Single-Family
85
detached homes
Multifamily
0
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
8.2
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
128
128
0
$23.7M
2020
140
140
0
$21.2M
2021
106
106
0
$16.0M
2022
115
115
0
$14.1M
2023
106
106
0
$12.0M
2024
85
85
0
$26.6M
Permit volume decreased 34% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Drive Alone
83.6%
Carpool
3.5%
Public Transit
0.0%
Walk
0.0%
Work from Home
9.7%
Other
3.2%
Based on 4,369 workers 16 and over.
Monthly Utility Costs
Alabama statewide monthly utility average (EIA 2023): $245
EIA 2023 residential energy data puts average monthly utilities across Alabama at $245 (electricity about $138 , water and sewer about $45 ).
These are Alabama statewide averages, not a meter reading for Spanish Fort. Actual bills vary by home size, usage, and local rates. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023.
Living Costs & Risk
Alabama's BEA cost-of-living index is 88.8 (Well Below Average; US average = 100, RPP 2024). HUD Fair Market Rent for a typical two-bedroom in the county around Spanish Fort is $936/mo. FEMA's National Risk Index, averaged to Alabama statewide on PlainCities, rates natural-hazard exposure at 61.5 / 100 (Moderate).
Cost/risk geography note
Cost of living is a Alabama statewide BEA average; rent is a county-level HUD Fair Market Rent for the county Spanish Fort sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Spanish Fort compares to similar-size Alabama cities
Same-state peer method
Closest same-state population matches, not geographic neighbors. Population + median household income come from Census Bureau ACS 5-year B01001 and B19013.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau ACS 5-Year 2023, FBI UCR, NCES CCD, Census BPS 2024, Census ACS B08301/B08136, U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) 2023, BEA Regional Price Parities 2024, HUD Fair Market Rents 2026, FEMA National Risk Index.