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Place dossier plate
SheetAL-SUMMERDALE-AL · Summerdale, AL 1,589 pop · income 47th 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 Summerdale
Lowest/highest poles plus peers nearest Summerdale on median household income. Full ladder: /browse and /rankings.
median HH income
Fort Deposit · lowest
20,156
Fort Deposit · lowest
20,156 median HH income
22.1% of the leader · rank #1
Summerdale · this city
67,768
Summerdale · this city
67,768 median HH income
74.3% of the leader · rank #2
Pleasant Hill · near
67,768
Pleasant Hill · near
67,768 median HH income
74.3% of the leader · rank #3
Coplay · near
67,768
Coplay · near
67,768 median HH income
74.3% of the leader · rank #4
Sandpoint · near
67,769
Sandpoint · near
67,769 median HH income
74.3% of the leader · rank #5
Elizabethtown · near
67,770
Elizabethtown · near
67,770 median HH income
74.3% of the leader · rank #6
New Castle No… · highest
91,250
New Castle No… · highest
91,250 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 Summerdale 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: 1,589.
Agency-reported UCR totals per 100,000 population, not a neighborhood safety grade or a prediction of personal risk.
Summerdale - the verdict
Out of every US city with 1,000+ residents, Summerdale places in the 47th percentile for household income and the 8th percentile for safety. Source: Census ACS + FBI UCR.
47th
percentile, household income
55th
percentile, home value
1st
percentile, median rent
8th
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: Summerdale, AL
1,589 people live in Summerdale, Alabama - a small town by U.S. Census Bureau ACS 2023 estimates. Summerdale households earn a median of $67,768 annually, below the median for U.S. cities on this measure, with a poverty rate of 3.4%. Summerdale's housing stock carries a median value of $244,900, and the median resident age is 44.3 years. 17.3% of adults here have a bachelor's degree or higher; 57.3% of working-age residents are in the labor force.
Housing supply pressure shows in Census Building Permit Survey data: 52 residential units were authorized in 2024 (Stable), up 4% from five years earlier. Summerdale's reported crime rate runs above the national norm: per-100,000 total crime stands at 3855.7 in FBI UCR data, above the national average (a voluntary reporting program, read this as reporting activity, not a definitive danger score).
Living costs in Alabama run below the national norm: BEA Regional Price Parities 2024 puts Alabama at 88.8 on a 100-equals-national-average scale (Well Below Average). A typical two-bedroom carries a HUD Fair Market Rent of $936 per month statewide. Statewide, average monthly utility bills in Alabama run around $245, per EIA 2023 residential energy data. The average commute for Summerdale workers runs 24.2 minutes, with 81.6% driving alone and 2.9% working from home. 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 Summerdale'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 schools and households to housing and income to population change to reported crime to comparison shortlist to work and mobility; another city can have a different sequence or fewer supported layers because the source joins are not uniform.
For Summerdale, city-specific coverage includes commute-mode shares, FBI reported-crime rates, annual population history, local building permits, 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.
1. Schools and households
What does the education layer cover for Summerdale?
The matched institution count is small, so district boundaries and schools outside the city line may matter more than the municipal count suggests. Use the number as a coverage cue, then verify attendance zones with the district before making a household decision.
The NCES join finds 1 public school within the city match. 17.3% 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.
How far does income reach against housing in Summerdale?
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.
The home-value-to-income reference sits in a middle range: the ACS median home value is 3.6 times median household income. The ACS poverty estimate is 3.4%, which keeps the citywide median from describing every household.
Is Summerdale growing, shrinking, or holding steady?
Census PEP estimates show the population grew by +223 residents from 2020 to 2025, a +14.9% change. Separately, Census BPS recorded 52 housing units authorized in 2024. PEP and ACS are different Census series, so the trend is kept separate from the headline ACS population.
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.
Which cities make useful reference points for Summerdale?
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.
Within Alabama, the closest population matches are Ragland (1,601 residents, $37,679 income); Level Plains (1,608 residents, $64,167 income); Marbury (1,609 residents, $76,367 income). Outside the state, the closest population matches in this dataset are Prineville Lake Acres, OR (1,589 residents); New Castle Northwest, PA (1,589 residents); Beaver Dam, AZ (1,590 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.
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 Summerdale?
The joined FBI UCR record reports 3855.7 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents, above the 2280.5 national reference used here. The difference is 69% higher in arithmetic terms, but agency participation is voluntary and reporting completeness varies.
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.
Total reported rate
3855.7
Violent rate
870.6
Property rate
2985.1
FBI Uniform Crime Reporting, incidents per 100,000. Voluntary agency reporting; not a danger score.
What does the journey to work look like in Summerdale?
Driving alone is the largest reported mode at 81.6%. The reported mean trip to work is 24.2 minutes.
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.
Drive alone
81.6%
Work from home
2.9%
Public transit
0.0%
City-level Census ACS commuting estimates covering 767 workers age 16+.
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.
Poverty rate B+
3.4%
Share of residents below the poverty line; lower scores better on this axis.
Household income D
$67,768
Median household income vs U.S. cities (pop ≥1,000); ACS.
Bachelor's+ share F
17.3%
Adults with a bachelor's degree or higher; ACS.
Violent crime F
871 /100k
FBI UCR violent offenses per 100,000 residents; lower is stronger on this axis.
Summerdale profile (scored ACS/FBI dimensions)Read the chart values
Cost of living: 90/100 (A+) · 88.8 index
Poverty rate: 76/100 (B+) · 3.4%
Household income: 46/100 (D) · $67,768
Bachelor's+ share: 26/100 (F) · 17.3%
Violent crime: 0/100 (F) · 871 /100k
Where Summerdale sits on home value vs crime among peer cities
Summerdale'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 - Summerdale highlighted among 23 peers.Read the chart values
Summerdale, AL (this city): home $244,900, crime 3,856/100k
Ragland, AL : home $110,800, crime 2,635/100k
Level Plains, AL : home $125,300, crime 2,014/100k
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 Summerdale compare to other US cities?
Here's how Summerdale stacks up against the full field of US cities (population 1,000+), computed live from Census and FBI data.
Household income47% higher than other cities
Home value55% pricier than other cities
Median rent1% pricier than other cities
Safety8% safer than other cities
"Safer than" reflects total crime rate from FBI UCR; the others use Census ACS estimates.
Zoom in to just Alabama and the picture shifts: Summerdale ranks #198 of 222 Alabama cities by lowest crime rate, a different read than the national percentile above.
How we calculate these percentiles & ranks
Each percentile compares Summerdale 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 Summerdale near the bottom of Alabama's cities
Among the 556 Alabama cities PlainCities tracks with reported median gross rent data, Summerdale ranks #1 - the 0th percentile within the state. This is a different, narrower cut than the nationwide percentiles above: it compares Summerdale only against its own state's cities, not the full US field.
Median Household Income
#143 of 530
73rd percentile in Alabama
Median Gross Rent
#1 of 556
0th percentile in Alabama
Median Home Value
#55 of 517
89th percentile in Alabama
Poverty Rate
#463 of 556
16th percentile in Alabama
Bachelor's Degree or Higher
#237 of 556
57th 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
47th percentile nationally for median household income · 8th percentile for safety (lower crime rate). Source: Census ACS 2023 / FBI UCR 2023.
Summerdale's profile vs. every US city
Income, affordability, and safety percentile
Summerdale'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 Summerdale's home value compares nationally
Median home value vs. every US city (population 1,000+)
$244,90045th percentilemore affordable than 45% 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
Summerdale's home-value-to-income ratio: 3.6×
ACS median home value divided by median household income.
Band
moderate
3.0–5.0×
National rank
#9,408 of 15,516
More affordable than 39% of tracked cities (pop. 1,000+)
Size class
#7,540 of 11,323
Micro cities (under 10,000)
At 3.6×, Summerdale sits in the moderate band:
national rank #9,408 of 15,516 and #7,540 of 11,323micro cities (under 10,000).
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
$67,768Summerdale, AL median household income (Census ACS)
Show U.S. national quintile / Lorenz context Summerdale, 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 Summerdale, AL.
Key socioeconomic indicators
Bachelor's degree or higher (adults 25+)17.3%
Census ACS S1501, educational attainment
Poverty rate (households below FPL)3.4%
Census ACS S1701, poverty status
Labor force participation (adults 16+)57.3%
Census ACS S2301, share of working-age residents in the labor force
Population
1,589
Median Income
$67,768
Median Home Value
$244,900
Median Age
44.3
Poverty Rate
3.4%
Labor force participation
57.3%
Bachelor's Degree+
17.3%
Safety & Crime
Total Crime Rate
3855.7
per 100,000 residents
Violent Crime
870.6
per 100,000 residents
Property Crime
2985.1
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
1
Public schools in this city
Population Change
PEP vintage
Annual U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimates Program (PEP) estimates, 2020–2025
Summerdale's Census PEP population estimates, 2020–2025.Read the chart as text
Period
Population
2020
1,501 residents
2021
1,546 residents
2022
1,566 residents
2023
1,599 residents
2024
1,617 residents
2025
1,724 residents
Housing Supply
BPS source
Census Bureau Building Permits Survey (BPS) - annual residential permits authorized
🏗️ Stable
Total Permits (2024)
52
housing units authorized
Single-Family
52
detached homes
Multifamily
0
apartments & condos
Supply Intensity
32.7
permits per 1,000 residents
5-Year Permit Trend (2019–2024)
Year
Total
Single-Family
Multifamily
Est. Value
2019
50
50
0
$5.3M
2020
22
22
0
$4.3M
2021
10
10
0
$1.6M
2022
13
13
0
$4.7M
2023
12
12
0
$5.5M
2024
52
52
0
$12.4M
Permit volume increased 4% from 2019 to 2024.
Commute Patterns
Commute source
How workers travel to work, Census ACS 2023
Average Commute Time
24.2 minutes
Drive Alone
81.6%
Carpool
9.0%
Public Transit
0.0%
Walk
2.6%
Work from Home
2.9%
Other
3.9%
Based on 767 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 Summerdale. 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 Summerdale 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 Summerdale sits in; the FEMA hazard score shown here is a statewide average of county NRI inputs, not a parcel-level reading.
How Summerdale 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.